Connect Fibre to Put FTTP Broadband Live in 2 New Essex UK Areas
Network builder and UK ISP Connect Fibre, which aims to cover 100,000 premises across the East of England with their gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) broadband network, has today announced that around 5,000 premises in the two Essex locations of Rayleigh and Thundersley can now put in pre-orders ahead of the new service going live.
The operator, which is backed by investment from the Foresight Group (here), is currently rolling out their new open access (wholesale) full fibre network – using ADTRAN’s XGS-PON technology – across various locations in Essex, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Cambridgeshire.
In terms of their Essex build, the provider’s network already includes Hockley, where residential installations are already underway, and both Hadleigh and South Woodham Ferrers, where residents are due to be connected during Spring 2024. The latest two locations to join this club today are Rayleigh and Thundersley, although it’s unclear when they will go live.
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Customers who place a pre-order will receive an early-bird discount of up to 20% and the number of premises that can place an order is also expected to rise above 5,000 as the year progresses.
Stefan Stanislawski, Connect Fibre’s CEO, said:
“We are thrilled to welcome Rayleigh and Thundersley as the latest locations in Essex to join our rapidly expanding network. With our hyperfast speeds, advanced technology, early bird discounts and outstanding customer service, we’re looking forward to bringing faster, fairer, flawless full fibre broadband to homes and businesses in the local area.
The modern-day family household needs reliable broadband for everything including working, education and unwinding. Today, great broadband is a necessity, not a privilege. We’re delighted to be connecting Rayleigh and Thundersley with the connectivity that they both need and deserve.”
Residential broadband packages now start from £25 per month on an 18-month term for a symmetric speed of 150Mbps (inc. free setup and a WiFi 6 router), which rises to £50 for their top 1000Mbps tier and a promise of “no mid-contract price increases“. Plus there’s a 50Mbps social tariff for those on state benefits at £20 per month or £25 for 150Mbps (due to the new discount, this is currently the same price as their regular 150Mbps plan).
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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Another provider using XGS-PON. Meanwhile BT still using legacy GPON.
Another provider also doing symmetric whilst BT stuck in the past using Asymmetric.
This is why I love competition and the BT fans hate it.
Where Openreach has yet to deploy fibre, then it would make sense for telcos (including BT) to use a new fibre network ASAP rather than wait for Openreach to overbuild unnecessarily.
Can you imagine if plusnet offered contracts on cityfibre also? (artificially limited to 100 up to not be better than the BTEE product)… it almost makes sense for them to have a separate ‘garbage’ brand they run on altnet networks to grab those customers though
why would it make sense for BT to use someone else’s network instead of their own? the business case is worse than any other ISP attempting to use an altnet, since there already is considerable overlap with Openreach’s network today and in time that will be near enough to 100%.
That’s especially true of BT’s customers are not fussed with the extra speed or the unnecessary digging up of driveways while Openreach continues to provide dependable performance.
It seems to be mainly Openreach active in those areas at present so probably room for another player but will probably take a good while to drive up tAke up
Crazy.. here’s 33 million go and build. This government scheme is going to end badly.
@Mark Jackson, would you mind reaching out to ConnectFibre for them to comment on a recent update regarding their deployment in South Woodham Ferrers.
I live in SWF and was more than a little excited when they announced and began running their fibre. However, once all the fibre was in the ground and just 1 month prior to going live they pulled every postcode north of the train tracks running through SWF. They won’t say why and it’s incredibly disappointing.
My personal thought process is perhaps the ducting going under the train tracks by the station are blocked or collapsed resulting in ConnectFibre not being able to run their fibre feed from the south side up to the north distribution cabinet.
It beggars belief that a company would go to the expense of installing fibre in the ground then just leaving it dead, but it happens. I was talking to some Virgin Media guys near me and they found cables in that Swish had installed over a year ago that had been just left unconnected for more than a year. You would have thought that if the railway was an issue they’d have checked it out before proceeding any further with the installation.
Website says not available in my area (Rayleigh), so not sure how to get the pre order discount.