Alternative network builder and UK ISP Grain (Grain Connect) has today revealed their they’ve now signed up 30,000 customers to their gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) network, which is up from 28k a month ago. On top of that, their coverage has grown from 207,000 premises passed (Ready for Service) to 220,000 over the same period.
The operator’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FFTP) network can now be found in 58 UK locations (plus 151 new build housing developments), which includes a lot of small-to-modest sized patches of various urban areas like Leicester, Liverpool, Accrington, Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Scarborough, Carlisle, Barrow-in-Furness, Hartlepool, Newport, Sunderland, Blackburn and so forth.
Customers of the service normally pay from just £19.99 per month for a symmetric 150Mbps package on a 24-month term, which goes up to just £29.99 for their top 900Mbps plan (take note that out-of-contract prices are £5 higher than this or more). All of these packages come with unlimited usage, free installation and a router. The ISP also has a social tariff for those on benefits.
Richard Cameron, CEO of Grain, said:
“We are proud that we are truly delivering on our mission to provide the UK with a better choice for broadband and supporting 30,000 customers to go Full Fibre with better speeds, greater reliability and value for money.
With 220,000 homes ready for service on our network that have been live for an average of around 10 months, this shows that customers are quickly making the move to Grain as soon as we go live on their street, and we are achieving a similar take-up rate on our premises to that which Openreach has been achieving on homes live over the same time period.
Thank you to our customers for making the move to Grain and to our colleagues and partners who make this possible.”
However, it’s worth noting that Grain was recently hit by a few job losses and a “temporary” reduction in their network expansion, which formed part of efforts to adopt a more regional build focus (here).