Devon and Somerset UK Broadband Project Scales Back Airband Rollout UPDATE
The state-aid supported Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) programme has suffered yet another problem with one of their rural broadband contracts, which occurred today after they announced that their full fibre roll-out deal with Worcestershire-based Airband was being “scaled back” following its underperformance.
In case anybody has forgotten, CDS is a local government-led partnership that has spent many years helping to deliver faster internet infrastructure to areas where the market had failed to invest (usually rural locations). The scheme has already helped over 326,000 poorly served premises to access “superfast broadband” speeds (usually 30Mbps+), which mostly occurred via deployments by Openreach (FTTC + FTTP), as well as some smaller alternative networks.
On the flip side, CDS has also suffered from plenty of big bumps and delays along the way, which often related to the inability of contracted operators – usually smaller players – to deliver on their deployment plans without suffering big delays. For example, there was the scrapping of Gigaclear’s contract in 2019 (here), then the decision to terminate Truespeed’s deal in 2022 (here) and both of those followed after CDS rejected BT’s original Phase 2 build proposal in 2015 (here).
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The latest problem child of this programme appears to be Airband. CDS contracted with the provider, initially in 2016 to deliver fixed wireless infrastructure, and additionally in late 2020 to rollout fibre broadband networks to communities across Devon and Somerset, with four contracts originally due to conclude at the end of 2024.
In total, Airband is contracted to deliver 55,493 premises (examples here and here), but to date the operator has only delivered 18,794 premises in collaboration with CDS. Much of this work was originally due to complete by the end of 2024, but it hasn’t escaped our notice that there haven’t been any progress updates from CDS on this since last year.
Similarly, back in June 2024, we reported on some very public complaints by local councillors, which highlighted how “hundreds of homes and businesses” were being affected by slow broadband speeds and delays in work to install new fibre cables (here). This followed earlier news of Airband’s restructuring, which included some job losses and a slow-down in their deployment plans (here); the operator has since focused more on growing take-up.
What’s happened now?
The CDS announcement highlights that Airband, following its earlier restructuring and reduction in their build plans, can “no longer complete its contracted build for CDS in full” and has thus sought a change to its contract. After detailed discussions between CDS, the Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency and Airband, the provider has now committed to provide full fibre access to 8,377 more premises covered by the contracts
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The new agreement will see Airband providing FTTP broadband to a total of 27,171 out of the 55,493 premises it was originally contracted to deliver (we understand this will now be completed by Sept 2027). This additional build will further unlock fibre delivery by Airband to 10,997 non-contracted premises along the network build routes, giving an overall commitment to connect a further 19,834 premises in Devon and Somerset.
Rufus Gilbert, CDS Board Member and Devon County Councillor, said:
“Sadly we’re in a position where we have little choice other than to scale back these contracts with Airband. The company is unable to fulfil its contractual obligations, which is deeply disappointing for us and the communities that have been waiting for a decent broadband connection. A lot of work has gone into coming to an agreement on what they can now complete, and we’re urging BDUK to work with us to find solutions to the communities that are missing out.”
Mike Rigby, CDS Board Member and Somerset Council Lead Member for Planning, said:
“Naturally we’re disappointed that many local residents who should have been receiving access to fibre broadband will no longer benefit from these contracts. There’s no escaping the fact these are not easy times for the industry as many alternative network providers have slowed their build. If it was easy and profitable to build fibre broadband networks in rural areas, it would have done commercially by now. But it’s challenging.
When it became apparent that Airband would have to scale back its build for CDS, following the company’s restructure, our teams have worked behind the scenes to come to an agreement with Airband over what could still be delivered. That has ensured that nearly 8,400 homes and businesses will still be provided with access to full fibre, but for those not included in Airband’s ongoing delivery, CDS will do everything it can to help communities get a connection as we know how vital it is for rural communities to have decent broadband.”
Kash Rahman, MD of Airband, said:
“We’ve had to make tough decisions on our build activity this year and we are sorry if this news comes as a disappointment to residents who are left waiting for better connectivity. We have come to an agreement with CDS and will continue building the fibre network, albeit scaled back from the original contracted number. The region is an important part of our network, we have worked hard to deliver against engineering challenges, and we will continue to deliver better broadband for people who need it. I’m really proud of the team for the work done to date.”
The CDS team said they were now urging BDUK to “re-enable rural [gigabit broadband] voucher applications to open promptly in communities where Airband will no longer be delivering“, which could offer those communities a potential alternative. CDS is also seeking confirmation of the Devon and Somerset premises that will be connected under the nationally led contracts awarded to Openreach (BT) as part of the Government’s separate Project Gigabit programme (here).
Meanwhile, the CDS contract with rural ISP Wessex Internet, covering South Somerset, remains in place and to date has connected 3,006 homes with a further 302 going live by December 2024. The contract is on track to complete in June 2025. CDS adds that superfast broadband coverage in Devon and Somerset currently stands at around 93% of premises, which is said to be above the 86% average for UK rural areas. Public take up of CDS-funded broadband connections is also claimed to be above the national average.
The Airband situation is clearly embarrassing for CDS, given their many similar challenges over the past few years, and probably won’t help Airband’s reputation all that much either.
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UPDATE 1st Nov 2024 @ 8:18am
You can find information on communities which will still be built as part of Airband’s CDS contract here, and communities which will no longer be included in the rollout here.
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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Perhaps BT’s original bid back in 2015 wasn’t overpriced after all, but nearly a decade later and having gone through multiple different suppliers, managers, and bi-annual contract cancellations I’m sure it was all worth it.
Maybe some of these proposals and companies should have been placed in front of the Dragons’ Den Panel first.
Evan: “Tech giant Peter quizzes them about the technical infrastructure”
Peter: “You say it’s scalable but you just don’t have the contacts to pull this off, I’m out’
Evan: “Deborah wants to dive futher into the hyper valuation of the proposal”…….
If they had gone with BT in the first place instead of one minnow after another, they would have 54,000 happy customers?
Scale back from two providers on CDS. I live in the other contract and it looks like Wessex have stopped or scaled back from what I heard at local parish meeting!
Can’t see anyone else signing a contract with CDS given the history. Maybe Wildanet will be tempted …. but would be mad to. So that leaves the cumbersome use of widespread vouchers.
Exactly. It seems like this article is blaming Airband, but it’s not all them, CDS definitely have a part to play in this as well.
I fail to see how delivering 27171 properties by Sept 2027 is a “scaling back” of a contract to deliver 55593 properties by December 2024.
Delivering 27171 properties by December 2024 would be a scaling back. This is a scaling back and an extension of the contract.
But then clarity and transparency have never been something CDS have delivered in abundance. Or at all. We were promised monthly updates on the progress of the Airband contract, yet heard…. crickets.
Taxpayers let down by Altnet’s fantasy business plan yet again.
This isn’t a contract that throws a load of money over the fence and says “see what you can do with this”.
Funds are only paid out when properties can be connected (which, I’ll grant, was a bit debateable for the Airband WISP contract). So apart from the cost of wasted client-side contract management (which must have been pretty minimal), “taxpayers” haven’t been let down. This is probably the only thing CDS have done right, but then again BDUK rules require it, so I daresay if CDS could have got it wrong, they would have.
Residents have been let down. Repeatedly. But that’s a different thing. And the earlier Gigaclear contract failure wasn’t due to a fantasy business plan, but a failure to properly scope and then project manage on GC’s part. Along with a dose of poor client-side contract management (see above). Carillion’s failure proved to be a useful whipping boy there, too.
Took them long enough. It was obvious long before they started they’d do a poor job. CDS has also proven itself to be a joke multiple times. Absolute waste of money and time.
Agreed. They have missed out quite a few properties in this area (East Devon) along their cable routes, but it seems I have managed to convince them (through the help of an Airband engineer who came to survey) to extend their build to cover at least most of these properties.
Such a shame. We were very lucky to be installed, otherwise we would still be using the very costly Starlink service.
Just to add. To be fair, I don’t think it’s all Airband’s fault, CDS has been shocking at the best of times also. When we were installed with Airband FTTP back in the Summer, it was initially quite unreliable but that seems to have been sorted out now. With the introduction of symmetrical speeds, we are very impressed with their service now.
Impressive that they’ve gone symmetric so quickly. Must have got the infra right..
Have they managed to do IPv6 yet ? If they’ve got that as well as symmetric speeds, I’ll be even more annoyed 🙂
I’ve got a local IPv6, but not a public IPv6. Yes, infra is good when it works, we had a very shaky start but has been rock solid now for around 2 months 🙂
Airband FTTP has been around for a few years, but yes quick to go symmetric for us.
Speed Test result: https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/b84cc4cf-2aac-4043-bab3-19cf38195b7e
Is Keri Denton still in charge of CDS?
LMGTFY 🙂
https://www.devon.gov.uk/strategic-leadership-team/director-of-performance-and-partnerships/
“….and is the Programme Director for Connecting Devon and Somerset.”
So that’s a “yes”. On £113K.
So those of us who are no longer in the build area can just get stuffed then? No information or plan on how they plan to get us connected at all?
I’ve lost count of how many times CDS has let us down.
It’s no real surprise, Airband promise you a date and then postpone, and you get no response from them, reckon they could be in trouble as a business after this years restructure, and the farce of some special projects in Devon that they fudged the figures on
Good luck to BDUK to sort out this mess with CDS, Airbad and the Open reach Project Gigabyte 6C contract here in Devon.
Looking at locations Airbad aren’t building too, would be a challenge even for Openreach ..
Yep, but they are also building in areas that aren’t challenging/are already served by fast broadband (yes, maybe not ultrafast but certainly superfast)…
Well….. Over 24 hours after the public announcement, our Parish Clerk finally gets sent an email giving us details of this.
What a way to treat your stakeholders, but ofc typical CDS.
Can I assume that since Airband installed telegraph poles all along our road several months ago, we might still be part of the now scaled back roll-out? Currently limping along on ‘guaranteed’ 0.5 mbps – usually about 2.5, which can drop out several times a day. Airband were on our local market a while back, handing out promotional leaflets, which featured a white elephant on the front cover….. Shame I can’t attach a photo here.
You have to wonder what the marketeers/brand “experts” in the altnets are on.
White elephants on promotional material.
A brand name that’s a bird which takes over your nest and throws all your offspring out.
Oh, and the presence of bits of infrastructure is no indication that the build will be completed. They may well have walked from a part-completed build. Happening all over.
Are there just poles, or fibre cables with CBTs (connection points) on them? It may be worth popping in your postcode to their website to see what they say.
Just noticed that Airband are building in the likes of Axminster and Musbury, Devon where there are good/very good VDSL2 speeds (80 Mb/s). I thought Airband only built in areas that are undeserved/have poor ADSL/VDSL speeds. It seems they are overbuilding or building in areas with already adequate speeds for the majority of users. Maybe that isn’t such a good idea?
Airband have overbuilt Openreach FTTP where I am in Devon, you couldn’t make it up!
How come they wait until the end delivery date to say they can’t deliver? Surely after all their previous issues CDS would have put delivery stages and targets in place – miss a target, collect penalties or drop out then, not now. Wouldn’t they? Or is that expecting too much?
The contracts only pay out upon completion of milestones (each milestone has targets that must be met for payment to be made). The penalty is they won’t get paid for any milestones they haven’t finished, or any they hadnt started prior to scaling back.
Airband feed off openreach exchanges
Openreach should use all the spin,poles and equipment free of charge to get some easy wins in those area’s airband can’t be bothered to do anymore….
Evidence they use OR exchanges? Yes, they use their poles and maybe ducts, but not heard of exchanges…
Airband have managed to stick their lovely posters on the green cabinets all around the south hams (Salcombe, South Milton and Thurlestone) that reads- ‘Superfast internet is here’ or something to that effect. However, FTTP has not been installed and the fibre line to the cabinet was installed by Openreach in 2016. All of their promotional material includes these areas as ‘part of our network’ but it isn’t…
Oversight at best and fraudulent at worst.
We are now left up the creek without a paddle.