Gigabit broadband ISP BeFibre has issued a progress update on their work to support the rollout of a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which is being built across towns in several counties (e.g. Essex, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire etc.) by network access partner Digital Infrastructure.
Just to recap. BeFibre and DI began their deployment last year with a plan to cover 1 million premises across 80 UK towns and cities by the end of 2027 (here), albeit starting with an initial goal of achieving 200,000 premises passed (Ready for Service) by the end of 2022.
The provider’s first deployment began in the Cheshire town of Crewe (38,000 homes) – supported by Aberla Utilities as part of a 5-year contract. The town of Brentwood (14,000 premises) followed that, with others in Worcester, Clacton on Sea, Hattersley, Ingatestone, Nantwich, Oundle, Maltby, Dinnington, Hyde, Heysham and many more being close behind (here).
Engineers are now poised to move into Bamford, Whitworth, Hadfield, Hollingworth, Uppingham, Dinnington, Thornton, Clevelys, Clowne and Lutterworth “imminently“. Despite being fairly young and still in the early ramping-up phase of build, BeFibre today claims to have already covered approximately 14,000 homes (RFS) and rising.
The team will also be hitting the road over the coming weeks and setting up various different indoor and outdoor events in Bramley, Hyde, Ramsbottom, Worcester, Brentwood and Clacton-on-Sea. The focus will be showing exactly what difference BeFibre’s next-generation broadband can make to customers’ lives, although no specific dates and times were included with the update.
Rob Andrews, Chief Marketing Communications Officer, said:
“We’re not afraid to stand up and talk about why things need to change in this market. We’re upgrading our customers’ worlds to deliver the fit-for-the-future connectivity they need, now. In terms of speed, customer service and reliability, this is broadband as it should be.”
Customers of the BeFibre service can expect to pay from £29 per month on a 24-month term for an unlimited 150Mbps (symmetric) package with free installation, which rises to just £51 for their top 1Gbps tier. The first 3 months of service are currently free on all of their packages.
They are at 14,000 aiming to be at 200,000 by the end of the year? Impressive if they can get there
Heswall and Pensby in Merseyside are also nearing build completion.
I’m hoping the people pulling what looked like fibre near here were doing so for this. Do you know if there’s any more information about the actual coverage? I’m not sure if the postcode checker is checking if we’re actually going to be covered or just checking the first part of the postcode.