Broadband ISP Airband, which is deploying a mix of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks across various parts of the UK, has announced that they’ve so far laid 134km of fibre optic cable across Worcestershire (England) and have plans to deploy a lot more.
The operator, which is supported by Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI) and in 2021 secured a £100m debt package from an international banking consortium (HSBC, Lloyds, Nord LB and Sabadell), holds a wider ambition to cover 600,000 UK premises with their network by the end of 2025 (mostly across Western England, the Home Counties and Wales) and claim to have already passed 200,000 premises (FWA and Full Fibre).
However, in terms of Worcestershire alone, Airband has today revealed that 7,000 homes and businesses across the county now have access to “broadband speeds that city-folk take for granted“. The operator also has projects already in flight to deploy a further 151km of fibre in 2023, which will roll out “hyperfast fibre broadband connectivity” to around 6,000 additional premises, with plans to reach a further 15,000 by Summer 2024.
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Redmond Peel, Airband’s CEO, said:
“Having lived in Worcester for over 30 years, and headquartered Airband in Worcestershire since the company was founded in 2009, my personal motivation to improve rural communities’ access to better broadband has been stronger on our doorstep than any other region we operate in.
Our fibre and wireless broadband networks have already transformed connectivity for thousands of people in the county, and here at Airband we’ve got exciting plans to bring faster and more reliable broadband to even more homes and businesses.”
One slight oddity with today’s release is with how the footnotes state that Airband’s network “has brought superfast access to over 160,000 premises since its inception“, which conflicts with what the company’s new Chairman, Ian Fishwick, said earlier this month: “Airband has passed over 200,000 homes already“.
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