Grain’s 2Gbps speed UK full fibre broadband network reaches Kettering

Carlisle-based alternative broadband ISP Grain has revealed that their 2Gbps speed point-to-point full fibre (FTTP) network has now started to go live in the industrial North Northamptonshire (England) town of Kettering, which is home to a population of between 56,000 (parish) and 63,000 (built up area). But their initial coverage is very limited.

Most of Grain’s local build activity in the town currently seems to be occurring on the streets that surround the semi-central Pleasure Park area, which won’t yet be live and so the announcement of the service having “arrived” in Kettering could perhaps be slightly premature. Nevertheless, they are certainly busy rolling out, so it won’t be long before more homes can connect.

As usual, Grain isn’t the only gigabit-capable broadband network in town, with Virgin Media (inc. nexfibre), CityFibre, Openreach, OFNL (Fibrenest), Glide and Hyperoptic also being present, although the latter three only have very limited coverage. Suffice to say that the town seems to be a bit of a high risk build for Grain, but that’s never stopped them before and they tend to compete strongly on price.

As usual the provider hasn’t said precisely how many premises they intend to cover, how much is being invested or how long this roll-out phase will last. But prices for the service, once live, tend to start at £21.99 per month for speeds of 250Mbps (symmetric) on an 18-month term (£11.99 for the first 3 months of service), which rises to £29.99 for their top 2Gbps tier (£19.99 for the first 6 months of service).

The provider’s packages typically include free installation, unlimited usage, a wireless router (Static IPs and Wi-Fi extenders are also available at extra cost) and pledges no mid-contract price hikes (first term discounts not withstanding). Grain currently aspires to cover 600,000 premises with their full fibre network and they also hold a “longer-term strategy” to exceed 1 million premises passed.