Network builder and rural ISP County Broadband has today announced 9 new villages, this time in Essex (England), where local homes and businesses will now be able to access their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which is also being deployed across parts of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.

The areas being announced today have already started to go live and form part of the operator’s current plan to cover 500,000 premises across the rural East of England with their full fibre network by the end of 2027, which is being backed by an investment of £146 million from Aviva Investors (here).

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The Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project in England has received a further £250,000 of funding in order to extend their Mobile Boost Scheme, which works to improve rural 4G mobile (mobile broadband and voice) availability by offering vouchers (up to £1,200) to help deploy indoor mobile signal boosters.

The programme, which is being funded through the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership’s (HotSWLEP) Growth Deal, is targeted at those premises which have no adequate access to indoor 4G coverage from any operator or only one operator. So far, more than 1,200 homes and businesses across have already benefited from this scheme (up from 900 in August 2022).

NOTE: Last year, data from Ofcom suggested that over 20,000 premises across the Devon and Somerset area may exist in 4G “not-spots“.

Businesses and residents that make use of this scheme, including those in Somerset, Devon, Torbay and Plymouth (South West England), are also required to make a modest contribution which, depending on the option chosen, will range from £250 for installation to a monthly fee for a SIM card (averaging c. £30 per month). This is because the main cost, as covered by the voucher, is largely related to the expensive hardware itself.

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Independent rural broadband ISP GoFibre (BorderLink) has announced the appointment of Neil Conaghan as their new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The move is part of the provider’s effort to expand their full fibre (FTTP) network to cover 500,000 premises (here) in the North of England and Scottish Borders by around the end of 2025.

Changes in senior management like this often follow after a major funding announcement, which in this case reflects the operator’s announcement in January, when they successfully secured funding of £164m from Gresham House (BSIF) to help build their new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network.

Since then, GoFibre has also secured two key rollout contracts under the UK Government’s new £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme, including one for 3,750 premises in North Northumberland (here) and another to help connect 4,000 premises in Teesdale.

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