UK ISP Gigaclear Nearly Complete Fastershire FTTP Broadband Rollout UPDATE

Rural broadband ISP Gigaclear appears to have nearly completed their state aid supported contract under the Fastershire scheme, which originally instructed the operator to extend their gigabit-capable “full fibre” (FTTP) network to 70,000 of the hardest to reach premises in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire (this was revised upwards to 110,000 in 2020 – here).

The deployment, which suffered from many significant delays and was previously due to complete in September 2022, has clearly been running a fair bit behind schedule. This may help to explain why we haven’t seen any progress updates over the past few years. At the same time, it’s also another reminder of just how challenging it can be to build FTTP into remote rural areas, where build costs can easily rise above expectations.

However, a new report on the Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard states that Gigaclear has just completed a related build to 3,000 premises in the Cotswolds market down of Cirencester, which the provider’s local Delivery Director says “brings to an end our longstanding contractual relationship with Fastershire.” But after a clarification, we now know that this only refers to the town and not their entire contracted Fastershire build.

Just to recap. Gigaclear’s rollout for Fastershire began in 2015 in the Cotswolds, where they extended FTTP to cover an additional 6,500 homes and businesses. But this was followed by a much larger Phase 3 deal in 2017 to reach some of the remaining properties across rural Herefordshire and Gloucestershire (several other broadband operators also won contracts with Fastershire).

Gigaclear’s Original Phase 3 Build Plan

Phase 3 – Area 2 & 3c – South Herefordshire and Gloucestershire (21,800 premises)
Phase 3 – Area 3d – North Gloucestershire (12,650)
Phase 3 – Area 3e – South Gloucestershire (12,650)
Phase 3 – Area 4 – North Herefordshire (13,900)

NOTE: We never saw what the revised plan for reaching 110,000 premises looked like.

Charlie Freed, Gigaclear Delivery Director, said:

“This work in Cirencester brings to an end our longstanding contractual relationship with Fastershire.

We’re now in the planning phase of a new £16.6m, three-year contract with Project Gigabit to deliver full-fibre broadband to more than 4,000 rural properties in east Gloucestershire, including Andoversford, Kemble, Lower Slaughter, Miserden and Woodmancote.

Once connected, these communities will join the growing number of rural towns and villages on Gigaclear’s network, many of whom would otherwise not have access to fast and reliable full-fibre broadband and the benefits that brings, such as streaming digital entertainment, working from home and utilising smart gadgets.”

The East Gloucestershire (Lot 18) Project Gigabit contract mentioned above, which is valued at £16.6m (state aid), was awarded in February 2024 (here) and the first premises under that are vaguely anticipated to gain access to Gigaclear’s new network sometime in 2024.

Gigaclear’s full fibre network is currently available to 560,000 premises (RFS) across rural parts of England (inc. 120,000 customers), although we don’t currently know how many premises they ended up delivering as part of their Fastershire contract. The fact that commercial builds by rivals have accelerated over the past four years can sometimes result in state aid projects delivering fewer premises than originally planned. We’ve asked Gigaclear for an update.

UPDATE 30th Sept 2024

ISPreview did query Gigaclear’s newspaper comment last week, and they’ve just responded: “Contrary to the quote in the previous release, this work does not bring to an end our contract with Fastershire, the release was only intending to announce the completion of the Cirencester build. This was an error in the quote issued on our side. We are sorry for the confusion this has caused. We are nearing the end of the build phase of our work with Fastershire and we will update in due course.”