FACTCO Bring Gigabit Broadband to Rothbury in Northumberland
Network builder and UK ISP FACTCO has today announced that their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network has finally started to go live in the rural Northumberland (England) town of Rothbury, which comes almost three years after the project (here) was first announced.
At present the local deployment, which has been partly or fully funded by the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), can only reach over 200 properties in Rothbury, but a further 1,110 properties are set to become ready for service in the near future. The project has also received support from both the City of York Council and the iNorthumberland Team at Northumberland County Council.
Customers can normally expect to pay from £24.99 per month for a 100Mbps service on a 24-month term, which includes a free router and installation, while the top 1000Mbps package is just £44.99 per month. But there’s also a promotion for new customers, which will give you free service while you wait for your existing contract to expire and then another 6 months free.
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Councillor Richard Wearmouth, Deputy Leader of Northumberland County Council, said:
“Faster and more reliable broadband can unlock a whole host of benefits for both residents and businesses and I’m so pleased to see this being rolled out in Rothbury.
I would urge anyone in the area who has this available to get in touch with their supplier and take full advantage of the most up-to-date broadband. If you need advice to get online or need help with your digital skills the Council has a range of useful resources to help you do so.”
FACTCO Community Sales Manager, Craig Morley, added:
“I have been overwhelmed with assistance from the people of Rothbury. So many have helped us through this challenging project, in particular Barry Chalk and Minister Ed Butlin from Rothbury United Reformed Church.
This network would not have been possible without the hard work of our build partners, RuralFibre4U, and the ongoing support of iNorthumberland’s fantastic team. I will be eternally grateful.”
We should point out that Rothbury itself is a tiny town, which is home to a population of just over 2,100 people. But despite that, we note how both Openreach and Alncom also have some good FTTP coverage in the town.
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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It’s great to see the smaller towns getting fibre, but also annoying when the larger towns that rely on commercial coverage still don’t have anything better than FTTC.
Roll on Fibrus/BT/Virgin or whoever will be first in Ashington (a town of 30,000)
If you’re interested in hearing:
Openreach have already done quite a bit near the hospital with some fibre in North Seaton. Virgin have a decently sized network too in the area. Fibrenest have a presence as-well with the new builds around the hospital.
Fibrus I don’t believe have any plans for Ashington, but I think FACTCO are planning more in the area as they have done Cambois and their website did briefly have a section for Choppington which would likely also include Stakeford, Guide Post and the surrounding villages/hamlets to them.
Virgin I think have the biggest FTTP network in place but a lot of it doesn’t appear to have been activated. I’ve been watching BIDB for the work that Virgin have been doing in the past 8 months. I know that in Newbiggin for example they’ve got overhead fibre through PIA with Openreach but as far as I can tell nobody in the town has it because it isn’t live.
So probably Virgin first for the largest fibre coverage (in Ashington) followed shortly afterwards by Openreach. Maybe in several years from now Cityfibre might too to a large scale deployment to all of the towns in South East Northumberland as it was on their website when I checked in the past.
funny virgin offers a gig 1 mile away from my place. But in my street nothing available. What a joke company. And gives only 100mpbs upload similar to 2003 times.
A MILE AWAY so cost could be anything thingk from 300/500 per premise or £1500/3000 or more depending what in the mile duct , no duct , wayleave , joint user buried — posts like this really annoy me as they prove the poster has no understanding of the complex delivery / commercial reality of getting to a specific premises — only that they are not covered
You can keep writing here and dreaming day and night. But reality is this country is Technologically impaired and nothing will change for many years. Just enjoy your expensive adsl+2 dial up boosted dial up connection.
If this country is indeed so technologically impaired, why not move somewhere that isn’t?
ok 🙂
If you have the choice of FactCo or Alncom, use FactCo. A LOT of Alncoms infrastructure comes from someone else’s house. As a previous customer who moved to Starlink, their service would go off. After some digging around so was everyone else’s. Turns out the source or their internet was simply plugged in next to someone’s lamp and being unplugged nightly to read a book. Never again. They’re only interested in the £1000 voucher they get per property. Avoid.
How bizarre. That is very much not what I would have expected from them
Alncom use industry leading infrastructure. Here’s an article for more information: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/05/commsworld-highlight-rural-northumberland-fibre-progress-with-alncom.html
Please feel free to get in touch as we would happily give you a tour of our infrastructure.
Also, we were thinking, as you’ve never actually used our fibre network, we would love to give you a full fibre connection so you can experience it first-hand & get you involved in our testing program, to give genuine feedback. As a local you could make a real difference, with your feedback on new products, services & equipment helping to ensure rural communities get the best broadband available. Please get in touch on 01665 604816 or email info@alncom.co.uk or even better face to face. Thank you from Team Alncom.