Broadband ISP WightFibre, which is already investing £35m to deploy a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network on the Isle of Wight (South Coast of Hampshire, UK), has now extended their full fibre coverage to nearly 20,000 live premises and secured additional investment of £50m to complete their project.
Until recently the provider predominantly operated a limited Hybrid Fibre Coax (DOCSIS) based ultrafast broadband network on the island, which was similar to Virgin Media’s UK platform and covered around 13,000 homes (plus 4,000 homes already ducted). But all that began to change in 2018 after they secured a £35m investment from Infracapital (here) to help fund a major upgrade to gigabit speed “full fibre” technology.
The FTTP deployment itself began steadily ramping-up last year and is currently reaching somewhat of a peak in its deployment pace (they’ve added c.5,000 premises since the last update in March 2020 alone). As a result the ISP can now cover 28% of premises on the Isle of Wight and they expect to reach 80% by the end of 2022, followed by 96% by the end of 2025 (c.71,000 homes and businesses).
However tackling the most remote rural premises will be expensive (i.e. going from the original 80% to 96% coverage goal) and as such the operator has been busy trying to find some additional investment. The good news is that they’ve now secured additional funding of £50m from NatWest Bank (total of £85m).
John Irvine, WightFibre’s CEO, said:
“WightFibre has made great progress in building the UK’s first Gigabit Island on the Isle of Wight, having already made full-fibre broadband available to nearly 20,000 premises. The additional funding announced today will enable us to connect around 96% of premises on the island, making Isle of Wight one of the most well-connected places in the world.
WightFibre’s point to point network design means every home and business on the island will receive their own dedicated fibre optic connection. This is practically unique in the UK making the Isle of Wight network not only world class but future-proof for decades to come.”
Bob Seely, MP for the Isle of Wight, said:
“I am delighted to see an Isle of Wight company secure funding at these levels despite us being in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has demonstrated more than ever how essential good broadband is not just for business but for the home as well. WightFibre’s Gigabit Island project will ensure we have even better broadband provision than we currently enjoy.
The Isle of Wight is not only a great place to live and work but also a national leader both in embracing and developing technology.”
At this point some readers may remark that KCOM only needed to invest £85m in order to cover c.195,000 premises, but much of their deployment was urban focused (e.g. Hull) and so a lower average build cost would have been possible. By comparison the Isle of Wight has a lot of rural communities to consider and 71,000 premises divided by £85m works out to an average per premises build cost of c.£1,200 (seems reasonable and that’s still less than the £1,700 subsidy limit on some BDUK Phase 2 contracts).
Prices for the new service range from £21.95 per month (special offer) for their unlimited entry-level 50Mbps (symmetric speed) “full fibre” package and all the way up to £42 for 900Mbps+, which includes free installation. The top two packages also receive free WholeHome WiFi powered by Plume.
