FreedomFibre Invest £9m to Build FTTP Broadband in Urmston

The Greater Manchester town of Urmston, which is home to a population of around 42,000, has been announced as being the next UK location to benefit from Freedom Fibre‘s rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network.

At present Freedom Fibre, which is being support by ISP TalkTalk, is already deploying across various other parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Shropshire and North Wales (Coverage Map). The operator is aiming to cover 70,000 premises by the end of 2022 (they’d done 20k by May 2022 and are quickly ramping up) and they also have a long-term aspiration to reach over 2 million UK properties.

The latest town to be formally added to their build is Urmston, where the operator intends to invest £9 million to cover 25,000 premises (c. £360 per premises passed). Work on this project is starting this week, although it’s unclear how long the local deployment will take to complete.

At present the only other gigabit-capable broadband network in town with any strong coverage is Virgin Media (VMO2), although Openreach are also targeting the same location for their own FTTP build and have already begun related street works. Brsk appears to have an interest in Urmston too, but it’s unclear when they will start building.

Freedom Fibre’s Chief Delivery Officer, Tony Moore, said:

“We are delighted to begin rolling out our full-fibre broadband network across Urmston. Whether you’re working from home, running a business, or have a house full of games-obsessed teenagers, our lightning-fast, full-fibre broadband will unleash so much potential for households and businesses in the area.”

Related packages can currently only be purchased from budget broadband ISP TalkTalk. Prices range from £29.95 per month for a 145Mbps tier on a 24-month term with free installation and rise to £35 for their 506Mbps package on a shorter 18-month term. TalkTalk also sells packages via Openreach’s and Cityfibre’s networks.