Zzoomm Adds Upton in West Yorkshire to their Full Fibre Rollout
Alternative broadband ISP Zzoomm has announced that their UK rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network is being expanded to include nearly 3,000 properties in the small West Yorkshire town of Upton, which is anticipated to cost the operator £1.7 million to complete.
So far the provider, which launched in 2020 and aims to reach 1 million premises across 85 UK towns by the end of 2025, has mostly focused its rollout on smaller towns in parts Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire, North Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Wiltshire and Cheshire. But they’re clearly now expanding into West Yorkshire too.
The operator has so far covered 50,000 premises (July 2022), which is up from 10,000 in December 2021, and the interest generated from Zzoomm’s recent announcements for the neighbouring towns of South Elmsall and Hemsworth seems to have resulting in today’s expansion into Upton.
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Customers on the new network currently pay from £33 per month for an unlimited 150Mbps (symmetric speed) package on a 24-month term with an included Icotera router, which goes up to £99 if you want their top 2Gbps tier (or £66 for 900Mbps+). Most packages do attract a £20 one-off activation fee, but they’re also offering the first 6 months of service for free.
Matthew Hare, CEO of Zzoomm, said:
“Upton is getting a competitive Full Fibre network that delivers blistering gigafast speeds and solid reliability. Everyone should have access to the brilliant, future ready broadband that Zzoomm delivers. The homes and businesses of Upton will be able to choose something better from Zzoomm, the provider that gives you more.”
The only catch is that Openreach have already deployed their FTTP network across Upton, which as a smaller community will make it much harder for Zzoomm to gain a return on their investment.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Virgin media is rolling out in all three of these locations build is happening now.
I’m from the area… Strange location to choose!
Not really, it’s just expanding slightly north to the next town from their Elmsall build
been with them for little over a month, so far apart from the slightly bumpy start everything has been fine, and the one glitch l did have fixed itself when l power cycled.
l cant speak for their hardware though as l saw it was the one most complained aspect of the services so l switched out as soon as they left and things have been running pretty well and l get a good 50meg faster than the package l am on.
Are you able to login to your billing account on the website?
Been a fair few complaints on their facebook page, some people having no broadband for hours. I know more people complain than praise, but still seems a bit worrying. There was something about planned maintenance, and it will leave people without the net for four hours. It is a new network, it should be perfect apart from a few niggles.
I have never, never had anything like that with Plusnet, come to think of it I did not have anything like that on ADSL. i did have one problem with Plusnet on FTTC, but problems do happen, but never heard about the internet being taken off for planned Maintenance.
I have had a few leaflets delivered saying I can get zzoomm, but going by what I have read and seen, even if I was out of contract and was interested in FTTP, the problems they are having have put me off Zzoomm.
I doubt very much if I will be Zzoomming it, their reliability will have to change, also their customer service seems to be naff.
I think building more networks before they have finished others may put more of a strain on their finances.
@Jack
I am able to login and update billing, though l do agree their web panel is a bit sparse though l make a habit of keeping emails with invoices in them to keep track of things.
@Ad47uk
l caught that maintenance but l wasnt the side of town it affected, apparently an unamed national provider damaged Zzoomms cables and they decided to fix now rather than later, though l have spoken to other customers who were affected many of them didnt think to power cycle their hardware but l admit to seeing a few who say they have done it but are still offline, though l do continue to see most complaints been about wireless, one of the reasons l got my own hardware, still l wont pretend l havent had a glitch or two and that their customer support is great but so far everything that lve experienced usually requires a power cycle which isnt unusual once a month or two generally speaking lm pretty happy so far getting 50ish meg more than expected essentially lm getting 200/200 (up/down).
@timeless, should not need a power cycle once a month, my broadband until the router went belly up was stable for months, even now it has been a more than a couple of months and I have an iffy router, which I am going to replace at some point.
they can’t help damaged fibres and I have heard before about the unnamed national provider damaging cable,, umm.
But even so they do seem to be a lot of complaints and while you may have had good customer service, there have been complaints about that as well. As I have said before on here, I am still in contract with Plusnet, I think it is 8 months now and to be honest the service is fine, and I don’t need the super-duper speed that Zzoomm gives, also at the moment, Plusnet is cheaper, but 8 months is a long time, well it is not really a long time and will be with us before we realise, but you know what I mean things can change by then.
At least it gives me time to see how reliable zzoomm is. But i am glad it is working for you.
to be fair lve not been with one ISP that provides its own hardware that lve not had to restart or power cycle ones a month due to a stale session or random glitch, even with Sky my old ISP. ISP hardware has always been somewhat of a crutch with me which is why lve had my own router for years for the exact same complaints most complain about with Zzoomm which generally boils down to wireless.
though l do understand what your saying, while l took the plunge and am happy so far others may be more apprehensive but as always l like using my own hardware which generally avoids most issues, been with my current provider 2 months nearly and only had to power cycle once, which was on the day the unnamed national provider supposedly damaged the cables, no issues since though l will note my neighbors who were with other providers (three on Sky, one on Plusnet and two with TalkTalk) all had a period of downtime the same day but from what l gather it was small scale.
either way lm keeping an eye on things amd am hoping things continue to run well, though when the economy calms down and hopefully things become more comfortable l may get a new router that will allow me more control than l have now over my TP-Link.
@timeless
Never used to have a problem with routers, the problem I did have a year or so back was to do with the network and not the router, which is why Plusnet sent me a Zyxel router to see if that would help, it did for a couple of days, but then I got a Huawei modem and connected that to the wan port of the router. a few months ago I thought I would see if they fixed the problem, and it was, so the Zyxel could connect to the network directly, sadly it went pop a couple of months agao. This is why I am using the old Hub2 or something like that, which plusnet supplied, but it does have problems, but i have not had to reboot it.
I will get my own router at some point, I was thinking of making my own and use OPNsense, but since the price of energy have gone up, not sure now.
I have heard zzoomm router is not good for wi-fi, My phone can just about pick up the Zzoomm router from a couple of doors away, so it can’t be that bad. 5Ghz only,
I presume the zzoomm router does have 2.4ghz as well.
I am not here 24/7 and I don’t keep an eye on my network 24/7, so yes I could have had downtime, but let’s just say that I have not seen any for a long time.
I hope zzoomm does well and don’t take on too much and then go belly up, I saw another zzoomm van across the road on Thursday, so another person having it.
Lets see what happens in the next few months I am in contract with plusnet, the one problem I have is I don’t want to go into a long contract, when this contract with plusnet ends I am thinking of looking at a 12 month one if I can get one for a decent price.