Freedom Fibre has connected its first customers in North Shropshire as part of the UK government’s Project Gigabit scheme, while premises in Exmouth can now access Virgin Media’s gigabit broadband services for the first time.
The plan for the fibre to the premises (FTTP) wholesaler is to build a reliable, resilient and lightning-fast full-fibre network for homes and businesses across the North West and West Midlands. After a strategic merger with VX UK in early 2024, Freedom Fibre claims an “innovative” approach to designing complex networks, and has onboarded a range of internet service providers, including Freedom Fibre’s retail subsidiary, LilaConnect.
Following months of detailed design, survey work and community engagement, Freedom Fibre commenced the build phase of the project to bring full-fibre to North Shropshire in March 2024.
The connectivity project has been made possible by £24m of UK government funding as part of the £5bn Project Gigabit programme, and the altnet aims to reach 12,000 homes and businesses that would have otherwise been left with slower, outdated broadband networks.
Introduced in 2021 with the aim of accelerating the UK’s recovery from Covid-19, Project Gigabit aims to boost high-growth sectors such as tech and the creative industries, and levelling up the country, spreading wealth and creating jobs. On its launch, the scheme looked to prioritise areas with slow connections that were seen as being left behind in commercial broadband companies’ plans, and give communities in so-called hard-to-reach places access to the fastest internet on the market, helping to grow the economy.
The first 1,600 homes in Hadnall, High Ercall, Walton, Shawbury and Bowmere Heath – included in the Project Gigabit contract – are now ready to connect to Freedom Fibre’s full-fibre network. Additionally, hundreds more homes can access more reliable broadband with speeds up to 1GB through Freedom Fibre’s commercial build, available from a variety of internet service providers.
With further growth said to be on the horizon as a result of Project Gigabit contracts awarded from Building Digital UK, as well as rolling out gigabit-capable broadband in North Shropshire, Freedom Fibre has been awarded £43m to upgrade broadband infrastructure in rural Cheshire.
On the south west coast of England, more than 12,000 more homes in Exmouth can now access Virgin Media’s gigabit broadband services, capable of signing up for services including Gig2 broadband, which offers top speeds of 2Gbps.
The network has been built on behalf of Nexfibre, which is investing £4.5bn to deliver high-speed fibre to the home connections to five million homes across the UK by 2026, with the opportunity to expand to an additional two million homes.
The fruits of a £4.5bn investment from Virgin Media O2 shareholders, Liberty Global and Telefónica, alongside investment firm InfraVia Capital Partners, Nexfibre was launched to create the UK’s first national-scale challenger to BT Openreach, boosting choice and competition in the market.
Nexfibre recently announced it had reached a total of two million premises passed and ready for service, becoming the second-largest alternative network operator in the UK.