Rural ISP Wessex Internet Get £35m to Boost UK Full Fibre Build
Gigabit broadband ISP and network builder Wessex Internet has secured £35 million of addition funding, including a Senior Debt Facility from Triodos Bank UK, which will be used to help fuel their deployment of a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service across rural parts of Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset in England.
At present WI’s existing network footprint is vaguely said to cover “tens of thousands of homes” (some of this may relate to their older wireless broadband network), while their current business plan targets an “additional” 150,000 premises by 2027 through a combination of subsidised and unsubsidised capital investment.
Majority shareholder, abrdn’s third Infrastructure Fund, ASCI III, announced the successful completion of the latest funding process this morning, securing an additional £35m in 2023 for the business’s long term growth plans. This includes additional funding from the Existing Shareholders and a senior term facility from Triodos Bank UK, an institution specialising in sustainable and positive-impact finance.
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Hector Gibson Fleming, Wessex Internet CEO, said:
“As company we remain committed to our vision to deliver full fibre broadband to underserved rural communities across the South West. This additional capital investment and senior debt facility enables us to continue to rapidly scale our operations and accelerate our roll out across Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. We are delighted to partner with Triodos, a bank that focusses on delivering positive change and shares our vision of removing the digital divide for our local communities.”
Prices for their full fibre packages usually start at £29 per month for a 100Mbps (15Mbps upload) tier on a 12-month term and attract a £49 one-off activation fee, although this only comes with a meagre 100GB data allowance. But the rest of their packages all include “unlimited usage” and rise up to £79 per month for their top 900Mbps (450Mbps upload) tier. Not the cheapest, but still a godsend for many as WI usually deploy in remote rural areas that lack FTTP coverage.
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 and Linkedin.
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This sounds good, but in reality its worrying for the project gigabit contracts.
The new post giving people money for signing up has comments closed. Has the admin been paid to protect the joke?
You’ll note that doesn’t fall under the “ISP News” category, it’s under the “ISP Special Offers” section and it’s policy that none of those have comments enabled by default (except when I forget to check). The front page summarises all posts from different sections of the site, not only news/discussion pieces.
WEF conspiracy innit.
Wessex’s limit on monthly usage set at 100 Gb is not “meagre”, it’s abominable in a world where the average UK user uses 450 Gb per month. They are reducing demand for their service, since anyone enjoying a FTTC connection in their target area will be hesitant to switch to them. It’s made more of a joke when we see the likes of Gigaclear offering an unlimited service for £17 a month, with 200 Mbps. And let’s not forget that much of Wessex’s current build is already subsidised.
Makes me wonder if that package isn’t a left-over from their wireless infra, where available capacity is much lower.
Don’t underestimate the effort involved in changing packages, especially in “older” OSS/BSS stacks. One of those things that oughta be “push a button”, but rarely is.
Exactly. 100 GB a month is a complete joke. We are not big streamers but we easily hit 1 TB a month on average with our FTTC circuit.
Anybody who can fit their usage into a 100GB limit would probably do fine with a 4G SIM, that seems like a very quick way to sour a customer experience who is joining Wessex Internet for the first time and might be looking at what they can do with FTTP that they couldn’t before.