East of England rural community provider County Broadband has announced that over 20 more villages now have access to gigabit-speed, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband after work to build the multi-million-pound digital infrastructure completed in several areas across its rollout.
A total of 22 rural communities in Cambridgeshire (nine), Norfolk (eight), Essex (three) and Suffolk (two) have fully connected to County Broadband’s full fibre network in 2024 to date.
Essex-based County Broadband is engaging in total with over 300 rural communities across the East of England on its full fibre rollout plans, backed by a combined £146 million of private investment from Aviva Investors, to drive economic growth and provide reliable access to online services.
James Salmon, Director of Corporate Development at County Broadband, said: “We are thrilled to have switched on our full fibre network in 22 rural parishes so far this year, allowing individuals, families and local businesses to benefit from world-leading internet speeds and network reliability.
“We remain committed to our mission of delivering hyperfast broadband in under-served rural and remote communities across the East of England that need reliable and fast broadband to enjoy access to modern services, whether that’s online GP appointments or running a business from home.
“Building full-fibre infrastructure at this scale in the countryside is a complex task, however. Each project is bespoke and requires significant planning and resources as well as the coordination of local authorities and highways, landowners and other agencies. Thankfully, we have hugely talented and dedicated teams across all departments to ensure we can celebrate successful network switch-ons.
“We look forward to connecting many more rural communities to ensure no-one is left behind as the UK continues to build and deploy full fibre networks at pace to unlock significant economic growth.”
Among the 22 rural communities to have joined County Broadband’s full fibre network in 2024 to date include East Bergholt in Essex, Wickham Market in Suffolk, Banham in Norfolk, and Great Paxton in South Cambridgeshire.
Meanwhile, a further 14 parishes are expected to join County Broadband’s network by the end of the year with construction work set to finish in seven communities in both Suffolk and Norfolk.
County Broadband, based in Aldham, near Colchester in Essex, specialises in designing, building and deploying gigabit-speed full fibre infrastructure in rural and hard-to-reach communities which have been typically overlooked by large national providers.
County Broadband started its full fibre rollout in 2018 and is one of many independent alternative-network providers (alt-nets) delivering full fibre broadband across the UK.
New figures show alt-nets have built full fibre networks to cover one in three UK premises – a total of 12.9 million which is expected to reach 16.7 million by the end of 2024.
Full fibre broadband, also known as Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP), is the installation of fibre optic cables directly into premises. The digital infrastructure provides gigabit speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps (megabits per second) which is 11 times quicker than pre-existing Victorian copper networks.
Full fibre broadband can also be upgraded to over 10,000 Mbps speeds in the future and provides vastly superior network reliability due to the technology of fibre optics and the FTTP infrastructure.
Currently, copper-based superfast networks are based on old and slow Fibre-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC) networks in which fibre cables are sent to roadside cabinets and distributed via copper cabling.
Whether you’re a resident or business, you can check if you’re covered in County Broadband’s rollout by entering your postcode at www.countybroadband.co.uk where you can also register your interest in finding out more about the full fibre infrastructure and service.
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