FullFibre furthers reach in Midlands and goes live with Droitwich Spa cabinet

Altnet gigabit infrastructure provider FullFibre has announced that its Midlands South region is to expand, with more towns to achieve what it calls supercharged connectivity. It has also sealed a wholesale deal in Worcestershire.

The expanding Devon-based national wholesale telecoms network provider said its mission is a commitment to deliver gigabit infrastructure to those communities left behind by larger telecom companies. The firm operates its network as a wholesale-only platform, aiming to supply full-fibre broadband coverage to more than 500,000 UK homes and businesses by 2025 while providing a competitive consumer marketplace for local and national internet service providers (ISPs).

The company said decreasing the digital divide between rural and metropolitan regions is key to creating equal opportunities across all regions in the UK, and that it is dedicated to increasing the speed and quality of broadband coverage across rural towns by installing high-speed telecoms equipment that is usually only connected across dense urban areas.

FullFibre also said that during the pandemic, dependence on technology peaked and consumer expectations skyrocketed, making the need for fast and reliable connectivity paramount to everyday life. It noted that households were connecting multiple devices to their broadband for home working, home schooling and home entertainment, but said only those connected to a high-quality service would be able to stream successfully across all devices at the same time.

In its Midlands South expansion, FullFibre said homes and businesses will have access to speeds of up to 1Gbps both up and downstream, future-proofing the connectivity infrastructure in Bewdley and Shipston-on-Stour for “generations to come”.

FullFibre CEO Oliver Helm said: “Fast and reliable connectivity is more important than ever before and at Full Fibre, our main goal is to close the digital divide between rural and urban areas, so that all regions across the UK have equal opportunities. The new service will connect those in Bewdley and Shipston-on-Stour who currently lack access to fast and dependable digital networks to a high-quality service.”

As the Midlands South deployment was being announced, FullFibre’s Fibre Heroes division – a wholesale network provider that allows partnered ISPs to access its network and provide a full-fibre network to residents within their build towns – revealed that it had lit its first cabinet in Droitwich Spa (pictured above), one of many cabinets expected as part of the town’s roll-out of a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network.

“The town has been under-served for a long time, so providing this full-fibre network is a real achievement,” said Gareth Yardley, Fibre Heroes region area general manager. “Getting the network live and able to serve a large proportion of the town has been a challenge, and that challenge will continue as we work to make sure it is available to every property. However, knowing the difference it will make to local people for generations to come makes the job worthwhile.”

Bob Brookes, chairman of Worcestershire County Council and a member of Droitwich Town Council, added: “Full-fibre has been a long time coming. The existing fibre-to-the-cabinet, copper-to-the-home network has served the town well, but will rapidly become obsolete. Only a complete fibre connection will secure the town’s future connectivity, so I am delighted that Droitwich is in the vanguard of this digital revolution and that no property will be left in the slow lane.”