Rural UK ISP Truespeed Build FTTP Broadband to 75,000 Premises
The latest network build update from alterative broadband ISP Truespeed, which is rolling out a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to homes in the South West of England, has revealed that they’ve now covered 75,000 premises (up from 70k in April 2023) and are continuing to ramp-up.
Put another way, Truespeed says they’ve extended their footprint by 25% in the first five months of the year, which is said to demonstrate a 364% growth in their network rollout – at least in comparison to the same period last year, when they were building at a much slower rate. The next goal is to cover around 120,000 premises (footprint) and hit 26,000 customers by the end of 2023.
The operator, which holds an “ambitious” overall target of reaching 500,000 properties by the end of 2026 (mostly across Devon, Wiltshire and Somerset), is currently being funded by a total investment of £175 million from Aviva (£134m of which has already been committed to physical builds).
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This year has also seen Truespeed invest an additional £6m into its home city of Bath, expanding the network to properties in Batheaston, Bathampton and Bathford. The ISP also extended its coverage further into rural and semi-urban towns and villages across the region, as part of a £24m investment in Somerset and Wiltshire. Speaking of which, they can now be accessed by 27,500 properties across Frome, Faulkland, Trowbridge, Mark, Woolavington and Walton.
Hitting these milestones so early in the year is said to have put Truespeed’s “rollout on target to meet the company’s ambitions to double its network footprint and customer numbers in 2023“.
James Lowther, CEO of Truespeed, said:
“Since we started in 2014, our focus has been on providing local people with a network they can trust. The South West is one of the UK’s most underserved regions for broadband and we are on a mission to bridge the digital divide and deliver high quality, reliable broadband at affordable pricing to communities across the region.
For us, while these milestones may sound impressive, our journey is just as much about our commitment to the region and putting customers and communities at the heart of everything we do. We believe this is what differentiates us and is key to our success to date – we are just as much a people business as we are a tech business.”
Overall homes and businesses in locations like Glastonbury, Street, Shepton Mallet, Wells, Portishead, Clevedon, Keynsham, Saltford, Midsomer Norton, Radstock, Peasedown, Nailsea, Bradley Stoke, Patchway, Stoke Gifford, Almondsbury, Thornbury, Uphill and Chipping Sodbury can now access their full-fibre broadband network. But they don’t cover 100% of every location listed.
Residential customers of the service typically pay from £25 per month on a 12-month term (£40 thereafter) for their entry-level 150Mbps package, which includes installation and a wireless router. This rises to £49 for their top 900Mbps tier (£70 thereafter), which adds a Linksys Wi-Fi 6 router.
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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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“But they don’t cover 100% of every location listed” – yeah the easiest of places like Netomnia as another example, but there are other ALTNETs. Anything that isn’t an existing BT duct they get scared and don’t cover, even if its a case of 1 or 2 of their OWN poles out of view to hop over to another road for coverage or just a few meters of digging. Usually with a fake map on their web site for coverage indicating wide area when in reality its far short of that. Just what I have found.
You just have to look at how patchy most ALTNETS are with coverage even in areas they claim to cover. The only one I THINK covers better is CityFibre but they also insisted on burying everything which put their costs up.
Cityfibre use lots of PIA now too, both ducts and poles – it depends on the area.
But yeah, there are certainly altnets which count their coverage by the (Openreach) ducts and poles outside a property, but only pull fibre when an order comes in.
Even Openreach is doing this, they rather overbuild than cover areas with no ducts. There are many big towns without ducts that aren’t even a part of the OR 2026 plan
It is not breaking news, it is just common sense
NE555,
Surely every provider does that? They will build the network to the CBT then pull/blow the drop fibre when needed?
They all only take the fibre to the ducts or poles. Fibre is only tun to the home if it is ordered
The altnet near us has skipped the exact same streets as OR, for the same reasons. Neither have plans to come back.
FTTP will only _ever_ hit 80-85% ish of addresses, or so I read.
BDUK’s ambition of 99.7% coverage by 2030 isn’t a FTTP target, it includes fixed wireless, satellite, and whatever else claims to be 1Gb capable.
Once they’ve hit ~80% of houses with FTTP, and the UK gov sees the bill for the final 20%, watch them drop the whole thing quicker than you can say “not economically viable.”
Caused utter chaos with a 45 min delay into bath today due to 4 way lights at odd down… cheers then!
The local authority approved said lights and I presume they weren’t digging there for entertainment value.
Noticed Truespeed starting work on the Warminster Road,going to be more traffic delays,& they have just got the green light to start work in Bathampton.
Hopefully City Fibre isn’t too far off from also starting work in Bathampton.