Gigaclear Tunnels FTTP Under Railway to Connect Rural Communities

Rural broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has so far deployed their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 300,000 premises across England, is on-track to cover 2,500 homes in the Gloucestershire town of Lydney after it deployed specialist engineering to drill under a historic railway line. But it may go further than that.

The town and civil parish, which sits on the west bank of the River Severn in the Forest of Dean (district), is not the easiest of locations to tackle. The complex work to enter the town involved sending a horizontal directional drill under the Dean Forest Steam Railway in Hill Street.

The fibre optic cables being “blown” through this new underground ducting will enable Gigaclear to extend its network across the town and into other surrounding communities, including Viney Hill, Newerne, Tutnalls and Blakeney Hill.

The ducting and cable were ultimately drilled deeper than required to ensure that if proposed work to the railway track went ahead in the new year, Gigaclear’s network wouldn’t be disturbed, thereby limiting any future disruption for customers.

Gigaclear General Manager, Jamie Flint, said:

“We decided to cross the track in Hill Street as we felt it would cause least disruption to the community. This operation is critical in enabling us to take full fibre broadband to Lydney and the wider Forest of Dean. Not only does it connect the east and west sections of our build in the region, but it also helps us establish a resilient network around the Forest of Dean as part of our network build works for our Fastershire funded projects.

Once we complete our work, this link will be critical to every community in the Forest for years to come.” Communities that will benefit from the work are both commercial builds and those that come under the Building Digital UK (BDUK) Fastershire initiative.”

Gigaclear has frozen its full-fibre broadband rates for 18 months, meaning both new and existing customers will not see a rise in prices until October 2023 at the earliest. Otherwise, residential customers tend to pay from £17 a month (discounted rate) for a symmetric 200Mbps broadband package on an 18-month term (£40 thereafter) and that rises to £49 (£79 thereafter) for their top 830Mbps plan. All packages include a wireless router and free installation.