Jurassic Fibre Bring 10Gbps UK Broadband to 90,000 Premises
Exeter-based broadband ISP Jurassic Fibre, which is rolling out a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across rural parts of Devon, Somerset, Cornwall and Dorset in England, has today revealed that their network coverage has grown to “over” 90,000 premises in the South West.
The operator is currently being supported by an investment of £250 million from Fern Trading, which is fuelling their ambition to cover 350,000 premises across the region by the end of 2024 (here and here). In terms of progress, back in March 2022 JF claimed to have covered 75,000 premises and today’s update states “over” 90,000 (i.e. a build rate of c. 5,000 premises per month).
As part of that, the operator has just started to build across the town of Wincanton (both Gigaclear and Openreach are also targetting that location). In addition, their first customers in Street (Truespeed are also working in this area) are now connecting to the service. Both locations are in Somerset, which should complement their nearby networks in Yeovil, Bridgwater, Taunton and Wellington.
Advertisement
The provider also hinted that they’ll soon announce having passed the 100,000 premises milestone, which is said to represent a £120m investment in the region’s economy. The provider has also grown their workforce to 344 employees and is partnering with Exeter College to offer construction apprenticeships in order to bring new skills and employment opportunities to young people in the South West.
Michael Maltby, CEO of Jurassic Fibre, said:
“Somerset has long been overlooked by our competitors, who have shied away from delivering digital infrastructure to rural areas. This has had huge repercussions for the local economy, presenting a challenge to councils keen to close the digital divide, combat deprivation, attract investment to the area and compete with other areas of the UK.
Most significantly local people and businesses have experienced download and upload speeds well below the national average; creating daily difficulties for those working from home, operating online e-commerce businesses or home schooling.
Collaborating with local authorities, and engaging with local communities, we are identifying key areas in the country that could benefit from improved connectivity. With ambitions to extend our network to further communities, we are aiming to bring better broadband to thousands more homes, businesses, schools and doctors’ surgeries across Somerset.
We have an ongoing commitment to levelling up the digital infrastructure of Somerset with the rest of the UK and improving the daily lives of the county’s residents.”
Residential customers on the network can take a 150Mbps (30Mbps upload) package from just £17.50 per month on a 30-day (monthly) contract term (£35 after the first 24-months) – this includes a router and free standard installation, which rises to just £40 per month if you want their top 950Mbps (200Mbps upload) tier (£80 after the first 24-months).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« Pine Media Brings FTTP Broadband to 7,600 Flats in Sheffield
So Three are using 10GB back haul links for cell towers with 5G for hundreds of users, but now you can get the same speed for your home, right now that seems utterly useless to the majority.
What do you calculate is needed?
Ignore above.
Yeah what internet speed do you think I need?
Three are taking dark fibre from VM, so in VM areas in effect they have an obscene amount of capacity to their masts. I know because I tested some of the fibres!
Nah, they’re not offering 10 gig to homes, which is just as well as they couldn’t handle it anyhow. They’re making out they’re really advanced because the network can in theory, in future, offer 10 gig – but they would struggle to do that in reality as the network is woefully under-developed.
This is just more marketing than reality, which is what they’re good at generally.
Thanks for the infobox. When I read the article I was thinking: I could have sworn I’d read on this site that Fern Trading put £250 million into Giganet.
There’s still a big “hole”(think ring doughnut) in the middle of Exmouth that they haven’t covered and as far as I can make out they won’t be attempting to cover it until Sept-Dec 2022.
Jurassic haven’t provided full coverage anywhere they go. It’s very selective, very minimal and a triumph of marketing over actual deployment. They’ve recently taken to bargain basement pricing to entice people.
Incidentally it is also 0 days since the last network issue caused due to the underdeveloped network.
I agree with Sam’s comment – they’re very much a joke.
Their deployment is pretty patchy. They surveyed the top of Sidmouth as their “day 1” due to the most demand. Then kept pushing the date back and have now removed the top part of Sidmouth from their plans.
They’re aggressively avoiding any conflict with Openreach so there’s a fair few spots in Exmouth that can get FTTP via Openreach, which means the ducts are there, but Jurassic Fibre won’t use.
Also is it just me that thinks the headline is misleading since the only 10Gbps packages they offer are leased line grade? Normal FTTP connections are only up to 1Gbps
Yeah, 10gbps capable would be correct though the current title is a little misleading.
I have too noticed the “hole” in Exmouth’s coverage. They’re rolling out in my village (Newton Poppleford) but Openreach have already covered most of the village, so I highly doubt they will get much return.
Mark – gotta stop it with these “X ISP bring 10Gbps broadband” as a professional in the industry I really couldn’t care.
Do they have dark fibre?… then great, run whatever they like, but these headlines need a bit of work. I really couldn’t care what capacity these Altnets can provide as long as they’ve gone to the lengths to get themselves dark fibre back to some sensible datacentre / ATE and aren’t just running their networks of Openreach EADs.
I don’t think this “10 Gbps broadband” is really headline grabbing these days, seems like lazy journalism if copy/pasting from press releases.
False headline.
Customers can not get 10Bbps speeds. I live in Exmouth and it’s not happening here.
Jurassic fibre are a joke company.
This website is getting worse with it’s click bait titles and sloppy writing.
How much did they pay for this non news story. Better news would be how they’ve started, got bored then stopped in almost every town they’ve visited. The openreach engineers who fixed our line said the company is annoyed with all the damage happening. One way to waste 1/4 billion.
Jurassic Fibre have transformed many local communities who had been suffering with poor ADSL speeds with no other affordable alternative, where they have had a huge return on their investment (Aylesbeare in Devon comes to mind). I’m not entirely sure what their “overbuild” strategy is, though…