County Broadband UK gets £46m to bring full fibre to 30,000 rural homes

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A £46m investment by full-fibre broadband firm County Broadband will bring fibre-to-the-premises to some 30,000 home and businesses in East Anglia.

Lloyd Felton

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AT COUNTY BROADBAND

"Many premises might have access to broadband, but the ultrafast speeds that we will all soon need are only available to around six per cent of the UK," says Lloyd Felton, Chief Executive Officer at County Broadband. "Our goal is to provide a world-class, future proof infrastructure which will deliver ultrafast broadband speeds of 1,000Mb/s now and even faster speeds in future."

Across the UK, FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) services using legacy copper and VDSL2 are still prevalent. In areas with fibre access, two thirds of customers still lack full-fibre connections and rely - at least in part - on copper connection. In fact, many homes and businesses in rural areas are still using copper infrastructure from the 19th century.

In addition to future-ready connectivity, County Broadband’s network will also be instrumental in providing access to vital online services from local authorities and health services as well as additional services, such as telephony and home security.

New approaches to rural fibre

The UK government has allocated £200m to fund full-fibre broadband connections in hard to reach areas. This will allow testing of new approaches to fibre rollout in rural areas.The most recent FTTH Council Europe Global Ranking shows that the UK has finally made it onto Europe's table of top countries in fibre broadband to the home (FTTH) and to the building (FTTB). However, although this represents a marked improvement, the 1.5 percent penetration rate and 13.1 percent take-up rate still leave a great deal to be desired.

eir invests €500M in fixed-line network

eir has announced a €500 million investment in its fixed network over the coming five years. The Irish operator plans to pass an additional 1.4 million premises with FTTH connections offering speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s. This investment will bring fibre within reach of 180 towns and cities, including every town in Ireland with over 1,000 premises.