FreedomFibre Invest £7m to Rollout FTTP Broadband in Eccles

The large town of Eccles, which is home to a population of around 40,000 in the City of Salford area (Greater Manchester), has today been announced as the next UK location to benefit from ISP Freedom Fibre’s ongoing rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network.

At present the provider, which is being support by TalkTalk, is already deploying across various other parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Shropshire and North Wales (Coverage Map). The operator has so far covered 40,000 premises across the UK and is now building at a rate of around 10,000 premises per month (up from just 1,000 last year). FreedomFibre’s long-term aspiration is to cover 2 million premises.

The latest town to be formally added to their build is Eccles, where the operator intends to invest £7 million to cover approximately 22,000 homes and 800 businesses. Engineers are already in the town to conduct surveys and testing of the current infrastructure, with a plan to start building the network in “early 2023“.

As you’d expect from an area like Eccles, both Openreach and Virgin Media (VMO2) already have extensive coverage of gigabit-capable broadband networks across much of the town. On top of that, there are also a small bunch of full fibre deployments from Hyperoptic, but otherwise the area should be able to support an additional player.

David Hough, Freedom Fibre’s Network Director, said:

“Freedom fibre is committed to delivering true fibre connections to its customers, and we are delighted to add Eccles to those communities within Freedom Fibre’s current build plans. Freedom Fibre is deploying a network which will provide reliable, fast, and economic broadband, allowing residences and businesses in Eccles to take advantage of the connected digital world and supporting the cultural and economic boom of the area.”

Related packages can currently only be purchased via 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 and Cityfibre.

Despite being a new operator to the market, Freedom Fibre already has live customer connections in Culcheth, Leigh, Weaverham, Irlam, Whitchurch, Newton-Le-Willows, and Stockton Heath. The provider is also home to 180 staff.