Devon and Somerset Update on Wessex Internet’s FTTP Rollout

The Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) programme has today issued a short progress update on their contract with UK ISP Wessex Internet, which has been tasked with deploying a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across some rural parts of the region.

The Phase 2 CDS contract, which was originally awarded at the end of 2020 (here) and supported by £4.7m of public investment (partly from Building Digital UK), meant the operator would spend 3 years on a build to expand their full fibre network to cover 3,618 premises in remote rural parts of South Somerset. This contract was then extended earlier this year (here), with an extra £1.7m of public funding, to reach a further 1,110 premises (total of c. 4,700).

The latest update notes that the rollout has now reached the tiny hamlet of Cockhill, near Castle Cary, which is home to just a “handful of properties“. Meanwhile, the build is currently continuing on the three-year programme in East Coker, Pendomer, Yeovil Marsh, Mudford and Closworth.

All of this follows the recent completion of work in Babcary, Marston Magna and Sutton Montis. You can get a better idea of progress by checking out the rollout plan on this page, and there’s a nice video to accompany the latest update.

Prices for their full fibre packages usually start at £29 per month for a 100Mbps (15Mbps upload) tier on a 12-month term, but this only comes with a meagre 100GB data allowance (£44 for unlimited), and you’ll have to pay £49 (one-off) for activation. By comparison, their top unlimited plan will give you 900Mbps (300Mbps upload) for £84 per month, which is fairly expensive by today’s standards, albeit a godsend if nobody else can supply FTTP.

Councillor Mike Rigby, CDS Board Member, said:

“The machinery Wessex Internet has to carry out this project in digging under roads and dragging the fibre through fields with the plough means it’s far less intrusive than traditional methods of infrastructure provision. The less disruption on the highway to the travelling public the better.

The cost of connecting these sparsely populated areas, where you’ve got rural farmhouses, would be far too great on a purely commercial basis and they wouldn’t get covered without the support of CDS. Devon and Somerset are very rural counties and CDS is enabling us to provide Gigabit capable fibre broadband speeds to small and medium size enterprises so they can operate in rural locations.

Quite a few rural businesses can’t operate on the speeds of broadband they’re currently being provided with. Being able to upgrade them to such a huge extent will have a big impact on the ability of rural locations to support small and medium size businesses which are the backbone of employment in our counties.”

The deployment will also complement Wessex Internet’s other projects and commercial builds. The provider’s network already covers “tens of thousands of homes” across parts of England (some of this may relate to their Fixed Wireless Access networks) and their business plan targets an “additional” 150,000 premises by 2027, through a combination of subsidised and unsubsidised capital investment.