GoFibre Finish Phase 1 of Project Gigabit Broadband Build in Rural Northumberland

Rural broadband ISP GoFibre (BorderLink) has announced that they’ve completed their first phase of build under the £7.3m state-aid supported Project Gigabit broadband rollout contract for North Northumberland (England), which has seen their network cover more than 1,100 hard-to-reach homes in three areas.

The first three areas include Wooler, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Belford, with the first connections to GoFibre customers being “made in the last few weeks“. We should add that every one of the 1,100+ premises is Ready for Service (RFS) and the announcement also notes that the contract aims to deliver 3,900 premises by 2025, which is up from the 3,750+ originally announced (here) due to a small misalignment in previously reported numbers.

The project complements the operator’s existing commercial effort to deploy a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across 500,000 premises in the North of England and Scottish Borders by around the end of 2025, which is being supported by a huge investment of £164m from Gresham House (here). GoFibre also holds the separate Project Gigabit contract for Teesdale (here).

Neil Conaghan, CEO of GoFibre, said:

“To have our first group of customers connected to our full fibre broadband network in North Northumberland is tremendously exciting.

“With the support of the UK Government and Northumberland County Council, our customers in the region will now be able to notice a marked improvement in their ability to perform fundamental online activities for both work and leisure, free of the hassle that older methods of connectivity provided.

We appreciate the community’s patience during the ongoing construction and are excited to continue to bring the benefits of full fibre connectivity to even more homes and businesses across North Northumberland.”

Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure, Sir John Whittingdale, said:

“Homes and businesses from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Belford can now benefit from faster internet speeds, thanks to the swift rollout of the Government’s Project Gigabit.

It’s vital that people in hard-to-reach areas can access modern digital infrastructure, not only boosting opportunities in their communities, but fuelling wider economic growth. Rural towns and villages like these now have connectivity fit for the future, delivering for local people for generations to come.”

Customers of the new service can expect to pay from £36 per month for a 100Mbps package on a 24-month term with an included wireless router, which rises to £69 per month for their top 1000Mbps plan. The latter also comes with a bonus Wi-Fi extender (this can optionally be taken on other plans too for just £5 per month extra).

Overview of GoFibre’s Wider Network Build

GoFibre’s full fibre broadband connection is live in:

Scottish Borders – Kelso, St Boswells, Coldstream, Galashiels, Melrose
Aberdeenshire – Portlethen, Newtonhill, Stonehaven
Angus – Montrose
East Lothian – North Berwick, Dunbar, Haddington, Prestonpans
Fife – Cupar, Cardenden, Burntisland
Teesdale – Middleton-in-Teesdale, Barnard Castle, Winston
North Northumberland – Berwick-upon-Tweed, Seahouses, Wooler, Belford

And the broadband provider is currently building its network in:

Aberdeenshire – Laurencekirk
Angus – Kirriemuir, Forfar, Brechin
Midlothian – Gorebridge
Fife – Newport-on-Tay, Tayport
Teesdale – Barnard Castle, Middleton in Teesdale, Gainford, West Auckland