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GoFibre Completes FTTP Broadband Rollout to 25,000 Borders Premises

Tuesday, Oct 15th, 2024 (10:16 am) - Score 1,000

Edinburgh-based UK alternative network ISP GoFibre (BorderLink) has today announced that they’ve “completed” their planned roll-out of a new full fibre (FTTP) broadband network to the Borders area, which has covered 25,000 rural premises. This is a big chunk of the 118,000 they already cover across the North of England and Scotland (up from 115k on 28th Aug 2024).

The announcement notes that more than 500 business customers, such as Borders Buses, are also now connected to the network. But GoFibre’s impact in the Borders area also extends across 25,000 premises in locations like Galashiels, Kelso, Melrose, Selkirk, Hawick, Jedburgh and Duns, and 13,000 premises in North Northumberland, including Wooler, Seahouses, Cornhill-on-Tweed, Belford, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Alnwick.

NOTE: GoFibre aims to cover 500,000 premises by around the end of 2025 and is supported by an investment of £164m from Gresham House (here). The operator also holds the Project Gigabit contracts for Teesdale (Lot 4.01) and North Northumberland (Lot 34.01).

Customers of the GoFibre’s network can expect to pay from £36 per month (currently discounted to £29) for a 150Mbps (30Mbps upload) package on a 24-month term with an included wireless router, which rises to £69 per month (currently discounted to £49) for their top 1000Mbps (100Mbps upload) plan. The latter also comes with a bonus Wi-Fi extender (this can optionally be taken on other plans at extra cost).

Sam Calvert, Chief Revenue Officer at GoFibre, said:

“GoFibre and Borders Buses are joining forces to keep people connected in the Borders – whether digitally, or getting out and about. As a company rooted in the Borders, it’s incredibly rewarding to witness the positive impact our broadband service has had on a cornerstone business like Borders Buses.

GoFibre’s mission is to deliver reliable, high speed internet to underserved communities, and this partnership with Borders Buses illustrates how robust digital infrastructure can transform everyday operations. We are dedicated to supporting local businesses empowering them with the essential tools they need to thrive in today’s digital world, demonstrated by our success in reaching out to business”

By Mark Jackson
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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Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).

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Cheapest Big ISPs for 100Mbps+:

Community Fibre £21.00

150Mbps (150Mbps up)

Vodafone £23.00

150Mbps (27 - 150Mbps up)

Virgin Media £23.50

132Mbps (20Mbps up)

Plusnet £25.99

145Mbps (30Mbps up)

NOW £26.00

100Mbps (18Mbps up)

Sky £27.00

145Mbps (20Mbps up)

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Comments

6 Responses

Julie Dervey says:

October 15, 2024 at 3:00 pm

Has the company engaged with the communities involved and taken their wishes and opinions on board?

Will telegraph poles be installed and overhead cabling, masts, underground cabling? Is this what the community wants?
1. Stop ranting about poles says:
  
  October 15, 2024 at 8:28 pm
  
  It’s already live. Please read the article before ranting about poles….
Terry lee says:

October 15, 2024 at 10:15 pm

Virgin are now building in these areas, how csn GoFibre survive?
1. Alasdair says:
  
  October 16, 2024 at 11:18 am
  
  Indeed. VirginMedia installing fibre where I live (but not my street, as its block paved and their contractor’s dig a trench/fill with tarmac approach doesn’t work) and GoFibre (who literally had their HQ in the town at the time) took so long to get started that Openreach installed a year before they did and captured all those waiting for faster internet. Now they will be in a 3 way fight with 2 opponents with much bigger budgets for those that haven’t gone with an Openreach ISP.
NOYB says:

October 16, 2024 at 8:54 am

I would settle them with finishing areas like Gorebridge, I’m getting worried now as their post code checker is not not recognising mine even though its been saying that it will be soon for most of this year…

Poles = Not ideal, but better than nothing since VM didn’t even finish Gorebridge off years ago. Also VM seems to have a very large outage here in the area covering more than Gorebridge. Also used VMB at work and I can tell you VM aren’t perfect.
1. Some Edinburgh Guy says:
  
  October 16, 2024 at 1:13 pm
  
  From the little i’ve seen of their works on the Road Works Scotland website, they do practically nothing in terms of coverage. They’ll count it a success having built their overpriced network to one street of houses and nowhere else in the town. I doubt they will continue to expand their network in Gorebridge tbh. If it helps, there are a ton of roadworks planned by Openreach over the remainder of this year for their network to be built, so at least you would be able to go to Sky, EE, or any other isp operating on the Openreach network.