County Broadband Add 10 South Cambridgeshire Villages to FTTP Network

Rural UK ISP County Broadband has today named the next 10 villages in South Cambridgeshire (England) to benefit from their ongoing rollout of a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which is also being deployed across parts of Norfolk, Essex and Suffolk.

The latest deployments have already started to go live and form part of the operator’s existing plan to cover 500,000 premises across the rural East of England with their gigabit-capable fibre network by the end of 2027. All of this is being backed by an investment of £146 million from Aviva Investors (here).

The live and semi-live villages are: Meldreth, Shepreth, Great Eversden, Haslingfield, Little Eversden, Whaddon, Barrington, Harston, Orwell and Kingston. They join Fowlmere, Newton and Thriplow, which were connected by the provider earlier in the year, bringing the total number of communities reached in South Cambridgeshire to 13.

In total, the provider is in the process of delivering full-fibre broadband to over 60 villages across South Cambridgeshire, with the majority expected to be built by the end of the year.

James Salmon, CB’s Director of Sales and New Territories, said:

“We are excited to welcome 10 more villages to our growing full-fibre network in South Cambridgeshire as we continue our mission to deliver future-proof broadband across the region. We’ve already started connecting homes and businesses to gigabit-speeds and many more customers will be going live over the coming weeks.

We’ve seen a surge in demand for faster broadband throughout the pandemic from workers in their virtual office at home, families streaming content across multiple platforms and businesses growing online. Our daily habits and reliance on connectivity has fundamentally shifted and we need the infrastructure in place to support these changes. The speeds delivered by the existing copper-based networks were just about enough in the past but they are no longer fit for purpose for today’s needs, let alone the years ahead.

Cambridgeshire is a thriving county but it will need world class digital connectivity to boost economic growth and attract investment. The reality is building new broadband networks is a complex process which cannot be done overnight. That’s why we need to act now.”

Prices for their service may vary between areas, but in most cases new customers will typically pay from £28 per month (excluding discounts) for an unlimited symmetric speed 50Mbps service with a bundled wireless router and free installation, then £48 for 300Mbps, £55 for 600Mbps and £80 for 900Mbps. Not the cheapest, but some of that is a reflecting the rural nature of their build.