First Homes Live in Cornwall on Wildanet’s Project Gigabit Broadband Build
Rural UK broadband ISP Wildanet, which back in January 2023 secured the £36m state aid funded Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract to cover more than 19,250 hard-to-reach premises across rural parts of Cornwall in South West England (here), has today announced that the first 1,000 homes on the new network have gone live.
The Cornwall project actually reflected two local supplier contracts under the government’s Project Gigabit scheme – Central Cornwall (Lot 32.03) and South West Cornwall (Lot 32.02) – with the funding and premises being fairly evenly split between both. The building phase for this began last summer, and now the first homes and businesses have started to go live.
Householders in villages as far afield as Mullion, on the western coast of Cornwall’s Lizard Peninsula, and Lanivet in mid-Cornwall have become among the first 1,000 homes to see the new service go live, transforming their internet connectivity after years of putting up with slow speeds.
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The work Wildanet is doing to support Project Gigabit has already seen the company’s own engineering team, supported by multiple contracting partners, install 33,500 metres of fibre-optic cabling as well as carrying out extensive civil engineering and infrastructure work. The provider says they’re now “on schedule to make the service available to more than 6,000 homes and businesses by the end of 2024, and complete the project by December 2025.”
Helen Wylde-Archibald, Wildanet CEO, said:
“As a Cornish business which is deeply invested in its local communities, we are immensely proud to be delivering for Cornwall, having been entrusted by government with these hugely important infrastructure projects for the county.
Wildanet’s founding mission was to extend high speed digital connectivity, and the social and economic benefits this brings, to homes and businesses in hard-to-reach rural areas so that everyone can benefit from the opportunities available in this increasingly digital age.
It is a wonderful milestone moment to see the first homes connected and to also reflect on the transformative power of this project which, as well as extending gigabit broadband, is also supporting local employment, training and skills in the Cornish economy.”
Julia Lopez, Data and Digital Infrastructure Minister, said:
“This is just the start of the connectivity revolution we are delivering for thousands of people in Cornwall. Thanks to millions of pounds of UK government investment, local residents will have access to lightning-fast internet speeds through our Project Gigabit programme – meaning no more waiting for movies to buffer and better connectivity for businesses.
It’s great to see Project Gigabit is already equipping communities with the kind of modern digital infrastructure which will improve lives, drive productivity and unlock exciting new opportunities for local people.”
Locations covered by the two Project Gigabit contracts in the South West and Mid Cornwall include: The Lizard, Hayle, Praze-an-Beeble, Constantine, Portloe, Fowey, Tintagel, Penwith, Otterham, Tredavoe, Mullion, Gweek, Praze-an-Beeble, Sennon Cove, Lelant, Angarrack, Trethosa, St Mawgan, Constantine, Bodmin and Luxulyan.
Full fibre customers of the service typically pay from £29 per month to receive a 200Mbps (40Mbps upload) package on a 24-month term with free installation, which rises to £69 if you want their top 900Mbps (200Mbps upload) package. The provider also offers a Social Tariff for those on state benefits, which gives you 50Mbps (20Mbps upload) speeds for just £19 per month on a 12-month contract.
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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This is only a good thing for more rural areas as long as they take it up. The cornish can be a strange bunch.
Cornwall was a significant chunk of Openreach’s FTTP footprint back in the day. How exactly are they a “strange bunch” and are we talking genuine Truro-born Cornish or all the holiday/second home owners and retirees too.
@Ivor – I think the second half of your last sentence explains it all.
Just the `Born and Bred` Cornish.
The South West does have a good OR FTTP infrastructure however these builds are the rural ones which as I said is a good thing when I go on holiday or buy yet another second home to rent out. 🙂
Must not be looking for that next airbnb portfolio addition in the right place Hazza – rural in Cornwall generally means it’s more likely to have FTTP, not less. That’s not to say there aren’t some FTTC cabinets in genuinely weird locations however.
In my own case OR have already strung fibre to homes *on the same PCP as me* that never got FTTC, but so far have decided against the easy win of stringing up my own road and the hundred or so houses on it.
I am not sure what you are implying about the Cornish, we are not all country bumpkins! I did also note the comment about second homes, this is probably why you find us so “odd”, we hate the Emmet’s ruining communities, the locals are priced out of the market!
Anyway onto Wildanet, I have no idea why Mullion has had this the OR FTTP network is quite extensive here and I would not class it as rural.
Still waiting to see what’s going on in my area. I note that it is finally no longer listed (with picture) on Wildanet’s website, probably because they offer no service of any kind here.
I still find it hard to believe that it is ever going to get gov subsidised Wildanet considering that the bulk of the area is on Openreach FTTP and it’s a no brainer for OR to fill in the densely populated FTTC gaps, but who knows.
install 33,500 metres..
Wish they would actually do “rural ” and not towns. What about East, Middle & west taphouse ? Pinnock? Very selective .
they only received subsidies for postcodes where no one else (ie Openreach) has declared an intent to deploy their own gigabit capable FTTP.
Lanivet and Luxulyan is not what anyone would call a “town”. It will be interesting to see what they got for “Bodmin” considering much of the town is on Openreach FTTP already.