UK ISP Quickline Tweaks Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout for Lincolnshire

Rural broadband ISP Quickline, which is building a new full fibre (FTTP) and fixed wireless (FWA) network across parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in England, appears to have had its Project Gigabit contract for Lincolnshire and East Riding tweaked. The result is a reduction in their contracted coverage target for the intervention area.

According to the latest Contract Modification notice from the government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency: “The awarded contract value for the “Initial Scope” has decreased by £210,188 to £115,149,812 from the original value of £115,360,000. The modification includes an addition of 3,977 initial scope premises, the removal of 4,805 initial scope premises, resulting in a net removal of 828 premises. There is also a removal of 28,187 “Deferred Scope” premises.”

The change to Deferred Scope premises isn’t so significant as that typically represents premises where BDUK were waiting to see whether commercial plans or voucher projects by other operators translated to delivery (i.e. if other operators don’t deliver then such premises might have potentially been included into Quickline’s contract at a later date). We assume the removal of 28k above is due to commercial builds, but it’s not completely clear.

Otherwise, the latest June 2026 data from BDUK indicates that Quickline has so far covered 20,610 premises under this contract (here), which is out of a total contracted figure of 47,800. The key thing to remember is that these contracts are not static and their scope, as well as committed levels of public funding, will change over time for a number of different reasons – informed by regular reviews (OMR) of existing UK deployment plans. For example, commercial operators may expand or reduce their roll-out plans in the same region(s), which can reduce or grow the scope for public investment within those same areas.

The contracted operator could also find the deployment to be more expensive, or possibly even cheaper, than previously envisaged. Such adjustments may occur due to changes in build costs and interest rates / inflation, as well as any unexpected obstacles to street works or greater efficiencies of build than planned or expected.

Suffice to say, there can be various reasons why the contracted scope of related builds and the level of allocated public funding may change over time. In addition, there may be further changes in the future, which could go in a different direction. So, it’s not always easy to tell what the final picture will be until you actually reach the end.

At the end of 2025 Quickline’s full fibre broadband network covered 200,000 premises (excluding fixed wireless coverage, which also covers c.200,000 premises – not all gigabit-capable). The operator currently aims to extend gigabit-capable broadband to a further 360,000 UK premises.