Gigaclear Complete FTTP Broadband Build to Large Oxfordshire Village

Abingdon-based rural UK ISP Gigaclear has confirmed the completion of their gigabit broadband roll-out across the large South Oxfordshire (England) village of Sonning Common. The work to deploy their full fibre network across the village started in 2023 and a total of over 2,000 premises can now access the new service.

New customers of the Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network can expect to pay from £19 per month for symmetric speeds of 300Mbps on an 18-month minimum term (£46 thereafter), which rises to £34 per month for their top 900Mbps tier (£82 thereafter). But we should point out that both Airband and Openreach also have some FTTP coverage in the same village, albeit not much.

Glynn Richardson, Gigaclear’s Senior Project Manager, said (Oxford Mail): “Taking our full fibre to rural communities that might otherwise have copper or an inferior part fibre broadband connection fundamentally changes them for the better because it creates choice for the people in those communities about how they work and how they live their lives.”

The operator previously held an ambition to cover “over” 1 million UK premises by 2027, but it’s unclear how much this was impacted after last year’s job cuts (here). This came as part of “planning for the next stage of its development” and a “re-focus on ultra-rural areas“. Gigaclear is reportedly now on the hunt for fresh funding in order to continue their full fibre deployments (here).