Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The ITS Technology Group, which has built various open access full fibre broadband and Ethernet networks (“Faster Britain“) across urban parts of the UK for businesses and ISPs, has today announced a reciprocal partnership with retail provider Zen Internet and spoken of their ambition for future network expansion within the next 2 years.

Just to recap. The operator’s XGS-PON-enabled (10Gbps capable) full fibre network is currently said to “pass” almost 500,000 businesses (commercial premises – about 25% of the UK business market), and they often claim to “reach the rest” through their trusted operator partners’ infrastructure, which includes the likes of BTWholesale, Sky, PXC (TalkTalk), and Virgin Media Business etc.

Meanwhile, Zen Internet is typically a retail broadband ISP, but in recent months they’ve also launched the Fibre Hub (here), which essentially aggregates access to a number of major and smaller alternative full fibre broadband networks (Openreach, CityFibre, Trooli, Freedom Fibre etc.) and offers that access up to partners (e.g. other ISPs) at the wholesale level.

The new agreement means that Zen Internet will gain access to sell their products over ITS’ network, while ITS will also join Zen’s Fibre Hub and be able to sell their services to associated partners. For example, Zen and their partners will gain access to ITS’ Fibre Light and Fibre Bright solutions.

FibreLight delivers a leased line-type product (Ethernet over FTTP), offering speeds from 100Mbps right up to 5Gbps. FibreBright offers a fully uncontended and symmetrical Ethernet leased line service, from 100Mbps up to 10Gbps – built for data-intensive environments and cloud-first operations.

Richard Tang, CEO of Zen Internet, said:

“Our partnership with ITS allows us to extend our reach and provide unparalleled connectivity solutions to our channel partners as well as B2B clients, especially in areas where we previously did not have a footprint. We are excited about the opportunities this brings and are confident it will drive growth for both Zen and ITS. I’m particularly happy about this being a reciprocal partnership, with Zen selling services over ITS’s network, and ITS using Zen’s network to provide services where ITS has not yet built network footprint.”

Daren Baythorpe, CEO of ITS, said:

“This partnership shows two organisations working to deliver greater choice, value, and resilience to the UK business connectivity market. It also reflects the strategic alignment and mutual respect between two businesses committed to innovation, quality, and customer value.

We’re proud to support their expansion, just as Zen has supported ours. From pioneering network innovations like our 50G-PON trial, to this new wholesale agreement, we’re proving what’s possible when collaboration is underpinned by shared purpose and ambition.”

As part of this announcement, Richard Tang has also done another one of his famous altnet interviews with Daren, which you can see below. The interview itself is perhaps less interesting to those coming from more of a consumer perspective (most of our readership), but it does reveal a bit more detail about today’s deal, as well as ITS’ view of the wider market and their expansion plans.

For example, Daren reveals that they’re hoping to expand the reach of their own full fibre network from about 25% of UK businesses to 35% within the next 18-24 months, which he felt was a “reasonable target [to be] setting ourselves“.

In addition, Daren also hints that their recent 50G PON (50Gbps broadband) technology trial (here) could be followed by a commercial service launch of the new network and related services, which he said may occur during early 2026.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Network operator nexfibre, which is working alongside Virgin Media to deploy a new 10Gbps full fibre broadband (FTTP) network across millions of UK premises (c.2.2m have already been built), has told ISPreview that they “remain focused on enabling as many ISPs as possible“. This came after some of ISPreview’s sources indicated that their wholesale plans seem to have stalled.

Just to recap. Back in 2022 Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners setup nexfibre as a new £4.5bn joint venture (here), which aimed to deploy an open access (wholesale) full fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises (side note: Telefónica and Liberty Global also back Virgin).

However, as previously reported (here), the nexfibre build recently suffered a big hit after JV partner Telefonica launched a strategic review. Not only did this pause Virgin Media’s (O2) own plans for opening up their existing broadband network to wholesale via a new NetCo company (here), but it also caused nexfibre to scale-back its FTTP coverage target for 2025 to 2.5 million premises (here) – roughly 500k premises less than expected.

At the time nothing was specifically mentioned about nexfibre’s efforts to onboard more ISPs as part of their own semi-separate wholesale plans, although we have long assumed that it might be impacted too – given the close alignment of strategy with Virgin Media and shared parentage.

Over the past few weeks’ a number of industry sources have since informed ISPreview that nexfibre appears to have slowed or paused their engagement with other ISPs, with related account managers being moved to other parts of the business. Naturally, we asked nexfibre about the status of their wholesale offering to the wider market and whether they were still open to other ISPs outside the VMO2 / giffgaff group. The response was mixed.

A nexfibre spokesperson told ISPreview:

“nexfibre is creating a wholesale platform for all ISPs – nothing has changed in our mission or belief that a scaled sustainable competitor to Openreach is needed for long-term market health.

The strong interest we have received from ISPs, outside of our shareholder eco-system, has been encouraging and reaffirms our investment in future-ready XGS-PON infrastructure.

While ISP integration is progressing, it is a complex process, often with bespoke requirements. In light of such demand, we have naturally had to prioritise our efforts, but we remain focused on enabling as many ISPs as possible to use our high-quality, full fibre platform.”

The operator doesn’t spell out precisely what they mean by “prioritise our efforts” in this context, although it could suggest that they’re opting to focus more on larger ISP partners for now (at the cost of smaller players), or have decided to focus on getting giffgaff ready for launch before progressing third-party ISPs to market.

The fact is that Telefónica is involved with both nexfibre and Virgin Media, thus their strategic review will be placing pressure on both sides and Liberty Global is having to manage that as best they can. Speaking of which, the CEO of Liberty Global, Mike Fries, recently indicated that it could take 24 months for Telefónica to arrive at a decision about their future direction (here).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The annual King’s Birthday Honours (2025) have just been published, which includes a couple of people from the United Kingdom’s telecommunications sector, such as the founder of alternative rural broadband ISP Wessex Internet, James Gibson Fleming, who scooped an MBE for services to community, charity and businesses in Dorset.

The honours’ system is technically designed to recognise people who have made achievements in public life and or committed themselves to serving and benefiting Britain, such as by helping to make the lives of other people or communities better. Proposed awards are chosen by the honours committee and their decisions go to the Prime Minister and then to the King, who awards the honour.

In this case, James Gibson Fleming was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) title for “services to Charitable Causes and to the community in Dorset”. This covers a lot more than just his work with Wessex Internet (i.e. various work with charities and the local community).

James Gibson Fleming, Founder of Wessex Internet, said:

“I am deeply honoured to receive this recognition which really belongs to the incredible teams at Wessex Internet, the volunteers at Weldmar and the Talbot Village Trust, and the communities who have supported us every step of the way. The approach has always been the same – take the long view, invest in your community, and build something sustainable that will serve people for decades to come.

Any success we have had – whether with the hospice work or building Wessex Internet – has been down to the dedication of local people who believe in serving their communities for the long term. I’ve simply been fortunate to work alongside such committed individuals who do the real work of connecting and caring for Dorset. This honour is theirs as much as it is mine.”

In addition, Professor Simon Reza Saunders (Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering) – Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol – was separately awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for “services to Telecommunications“.

Simon has done a lot of work on antennas and wireless networks, he’s also the co-founder and Director of Technology for independent wireless strategy advisory firm Real Wireless.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

Rochdale-based UK broadband ISP Zen Internet has revealed that Freedom Fibre’s alternative full fibre (FTTP) network, which at the last update covered 315,000 premises in parts of England and North Wales (4th Nov 2024), is now live on their service and being sold to consumers after being almost fully integrated following last year’s wholesale deal (here).

Until recently Zen Internet was only able to harness FTTP lines from Openreach, CityFibre and Trooli, although they’ve been gradually expanding through new agreements with alternative networks and Freedom Fibre is the latest to join that club. Zen’s partners will also be able to access the service via their aggregated wholesale platform (The Fibre Hub).

Freedom Fibre’s network can be found in a number of locations across parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Shropshire in England, as well as North Wales. But the operator’s network expansion has taken a hit after they recently dropped out of the £43m (state aid) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for Cheshire (here) and announced redundancies (here), although they still retain the £24m North Shropshire build contract (here).

Richard Tang, CEO of Zen Internet, said:

“Big milestone yesterday for Zen Internet’s partnership with Freedom Fibre. After great collaborative working, integration, and testing, we are now fully live with selling Zen’s award-winning full fibre broadband over Freedom Fibre’s network via our Consumer sales team. Over the coming weeks, we’ll launch in our Fibre Hub, so our channel partners can benefit from access to this new full fibre footprint at market-leading pricing. We’ll also launch shortly in our online order journey.

In addition to Consumer FTTP, we’ll also shortly launch Business FTTP, E/O FTTP, and EAD-equivalent over the Freedom Fibre network, giving us and our partners a full suite of B2B connectivity services.

Focus now is on ramping up volume!

Big thanks to the many people within both Zen and Freedom Fibre who have worked hard to get us to this point, on schedule.”

Just to translate this, it doesn’t yet appear as if those covered by Freedom Fibre’s network can order packages via Zen’s online availability checker and our own testing appears to confirm this (as above, this will change soon). But you should be able to phone them up to place an order.

As a result, we don’t know precisely what the packages and prices look like, but we have previously been told that it will be roughly the same as what they charge on the CityFibre side of their service.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The ownership of alternative network operator and ISP Runfibre, which has built a small Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across rural parts of South Gloucestershire in England, appears to have changed again after a relatively new provider called Nova Fibre took control of the business from the Fibreray Group.

In case anybody has forgotten. Runfibre is a small altnet that originally started life in 2020/21 by deploying their full fibre network into Hawkesbury Upton, Inglestone Common and surrounding areas – often with support from the government’s gigabit broadband voucher scheme. Some of their other locations included Falfield, Iron Acton, Sopworth and Little Badminton, Charfied West, Easter Compton and Over Lane.

However, the provider appeared to be suffering from some challenges toward the end of 2023 and ended up being acquired by the Fibreray Group for an undisclosed sum during August 2024 (here), which at the time indicated that the operator would continue to focus its future deployments on “smaller communities” (i.e. places where there are “fewer than 1,500 consumers and business premises” within an area of interest).

Since then we’ve not heard much from Runfibre, until the company’s listing on Companies House was updated on 8th June 2025 to state the “cessation of Fibreray Group Ltd as a person with significant control” and to note how Fibre Nova Ltd had now become the operator with “significant control” of the business.

In addition, Runfibre’s former CEO and Director, Daniel Herbert, seems to have been replaced by the appointment of Mr Lee Thomas Murphy. For those who may be unfamiliar, this appears to be the same Lee Murphy who originally helped to setup another altnet provider, FACTCO (since re-branded to the Fusion Fibre Group), which means the new owner has plenty of experience in the field of rural fibre provision.

Little is known about the Liverpool-based Nova Fibre, which itself was only incorporated on 7th November 2023, although their website – fibrenova.co.uk – shows them as selling broadband packages via Openreach’s FTTP network across the UK. But the provider also appears to work with new build home developments (i.e. “we provide all the infrastructure, billing, and support—while you deliver branded connectivity“) and related management companies.

ISPreview did attempt to contact the new owner yesterday morning to understand what the deal meant for the future of Runfibre, and we await their response.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

A month has passed since Vodafone first quietly introduced their new range of “Pro 3 Broadband” packages for homes (as spotted by ISPreview), which features their new WiFi 7 capable routers and wireless extenders. The good news today is that the provider has finally issued an official announcement, but it doesn’t add anything new vs our original report.

The provider’s new Pro 3 service is an optional paid add-on for most of their home broadband packages, which somewhat unusually costs between an extra £9 to £13 per month to add – depending on your choice of broadband speed (we’re still unsure why it isn’t set at the same price for all or why it costs the most to add to their entry-level tiers). The exception is their top 2.2Gbps package, which includes Pro 3 by default.

Pro 3 typically includes additional features, such as a Super Wi-Fi Booster for the “fastest WiFi in every room“, dedicated WiFi Xperts for daily support (i.e. proactively monitor and fix WiFi issues for the first 90 days after installation), automatic 4G back-up (dongle/modem) for if your fixed broadband service goes down and Secure Net Home for “hassle-free [internet] security and family controls“.

The add-on also includes their all-new Ultra Hub 7 (FG4278VF) router and Super Wi-Fi 7 Booster (RP761BVDF) – both with support for the latest WiFi 7 wireless networking standard, with two additional WiFi boosters available at no extra cost, delivering coverage to every room.

UltraHub 7 Specs

Dual Band Wi-Fi 7 (2.4 + 5 GHz bands)
Antennas 4×4, 4×4
2 GB RAM
4 GB Flash
1 x LAN (GE) – 2.5Gbps
1 x LAN/WAN (GE) -2.5Gbps
2 x LAN – 1 Gbps
1 x Fibre Optic Port
1 x FXS Port
1 x TAE&FXS Combo Ports
1 x WPS button
1 x Wi-Fi button

Maxspeed Fibre: 2.5Gbps
Max Speed Phy Rate om Wi-Fi: 7.2Gbps
Max Speed single device 2×2: 2Gbps
Access Technology: ZigBee + Thread radio + BLE radio

Chipset: “Top performance SoC”, but later says Broadcom BCM6726

The Ultra Hub 7 router, 4G back-up dongle and accompanying boosters are all made from 95% recycled plastic, while the Pro 3 packaging contains zero plastic, instead using soy ink printed on 95% recycled paper – the Pro 3 kit has thus received a Green Product Mark Certification for electrical products.

Rob Winterschladen, Consumer Director of Vodafone UK, said:

“Our latest home broadband launch, Pro 3, proves that customers don’t need to compromise on quality in order to cut costs. We’ve launched a package that gives customers fast connectivity through the latest WiFi technology, as well as security, parental controls, reliability and 4G back-up – all in one great value bundle.”

In the future, we also expect that Vodafone may upgrade their existing PowerHub (Wi-Fi 6) routers too, which they currently offer by default on standard broadband packages, to a slightly lower specced – but still Wi-Fi 7 capable – model (DG4278VF). We don’t know much about that one, yet.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that Vodafone mobile customers can save £4 a month with Vodafone Together (i.e. a bundle combining mobile and broadband plans for added discounts), and the provider will also cover your early termination charges from your previous ISP of an equivalent amount (up to a maximum of £100).

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has tweaked the eligibility criteria for their Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) again, which among other things now requires that a home or business must have existing available broadband download speeds of less than 1Gbps in order to be eligible (previously it was 100Mbps).

Just to recap. The GBVS typically offers grants worth up to £4,500 to help remote rural or poorly served urban homes and businesses get a gigabit-capable broadband (1Gbps) ISP service installed, which as above, is now also available to areas with speeds of “less than 1Gbps” – assuming there are no near-term plans for a gigabit deployment in the same area (either via private or state-aid funding).

The GBVS is currently only open to a limited number of areas across the United Kingdom (i.e. Derbyshire, Birmingham and the Black Country, Merseyside and Greater Manchester, Greater London, Scotland and the Isle of Wight.) and, until recently, it was also focused almost exclusively on catering for the hardest to reach rural areas. But in March 2025 this scheme was also opened up to help tackle some poorly served urban areas too (here).

The latest changes to voucher eligibility, which somewhat slipped under our radar when they were quietly introduced a week ago, include the removal of the rurality clause in order to enable premises under the urban extension of the scheme to be included in projects, as well as urban premises identified through BDUK’s related market engagement process.

As above, the threshold for the existing speed at a premises (home or business) has also increased from 100Mbps to 1Gbps, although the requirement for a “step change” in service speed remains in place (reflecting at least a doubling of speeds).

The rules also now state that premises deemed to be under construction or built within the last two years are ineligible for vouchers, which is perhaps because the law now requires that developers of most new build homes should already be ensuring that such properties are built to a gigabit-capable standard. But there are some exceptions to that law, so there may be cases where this tweak is unhelpful (e.g. smaller individual house builds in very remote areas).

Finally, the classification rules are now aligned to the rest of Project Gigabit and there are two additional ways for BDUK to assess whether a home or business is likely to receive gigabit capable broadband without public subsidy (i.e. local intelligence gathered by BDUK, and all premises at the same location are now ineligible for the GBVS if one premises at that location can already access gigabit broadband).

However, it’s unlikely that any of this will have a huge impact on the scheme’s progress, not least because the limited (highly variable) level of availability doesn’t exactly help, and it’s now much less user-friendly / accessible than it once was (BDUK previously scrapped their availability checker and now require people to first manually identify a local supplier from deep within the scheme’s info. pages).

The eligibility criteria changes apply to new projects submitted from 5th June 2025 onwards and will not impact existing approved projects.

Original article ISPreview UK:Read More

The boss of Liberty Global (Mike Fries), one of the parents behind UK broadband provider Virgin Media (O2) and associated network builder nexfibre, has reportedly claimed that the UK Government’s Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds MP, expressed that he was “anxious” for them to step in and rescue struggling alternative networks.

The past couple of years have been more than a little bumpy for the market’s many altnets. On the one hand, they’ve continued to drive positive competitive change and have built full fibre (FTTP) broadband lines to millions more premises – Summary of UK Full Fibre Builds. Many consumers are thus already able to enjoy the benefits, which is often reflected by faster speeds and lower prices.

According to INCA’s most recent report (here), full fibre broadband coverage delivered by altnets grew by 27% in 2024 to reach 16.4 million UK premises (or 15.2m if you exclude overbuild between the altnets) and could grow to 18.6m in 2025. But that growth rate of 27% also represented a slowdown from the 57% reported in 2023. This is because many altnets have also had to slow their deployments and make redundancies, while at the same time re-focusing toward efforts to grow customer take-up.

The above situation has been fuelled by a combination of factors, such as rising build costs, competition from rivals (e.g. overbuild, price discounts), the challenge of generating a viable level of take-up and the difficulty of securing fresh investment while interest rates remain stubbornly high. As a result, we’ve already seen a fair bit of consolidation in the market and plenty of job losses from various network operators.

On top of that, there’s also been some related disruption to the Government’s own Project Gigabit contracts (examples here, here and here) and yesterday’s 2025 Spending Review saw their target for delivering 99% UK coverage of gigabit-capable broadband being put back from 2030 to 2032. Suffice to say that the strains of this market are already well understood.

According to a new FT (paywall) piece today, the CEO of Liberty Global, Mike Fries, has now insinuated that the Government’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Jonathan Reynolds, is “anxious” for large network operators to acquired (merge) the UK’s struggling altnet broadband providers before they could collapse.

Both CityFibre and Liberty Global/VMO2 have previously already signalled a strong desire to consolidate (here and here), with others like Netomnia also considering expansion via further consolidation, so this is not a new prospect. But the idea that the Government may also be nudging them to do this does put a different spin on things.

Mike Fries told an industry conference on Tuesday:

“I was on the phone with Jonny Reynolds … the other day and he gets it: It’s not a good moment for the UK right now if fibre customers lose service and fibre investors lose money. They’re anxious to see us and others [get] involved here, you know, and we will.”

However, an aide to Reynolds said there was no record of any such comments being made, with the aide adding: “No one at the meeting remembers him [Reynolds] saying this. It seems that something might have been inferred from Johnny’s warm tone, but this is a commercial decision for [Liberty Global], not for us.”

In fairness, Liberty Global and Virgin Media do have some history when it comes to criticising or using robust language against altnets (example), so it’s perhaps not surprising that Fries may be keen to talk down their opponents in the sector again.

On Tuesday Fries similarly claimed that many many “desperate” altnets had dropped prices as a “last gasp” to survive and that, ultimately, they didn’t have the scale required. The latter point may be true for some players, but scale alone is not a guarantee of sucess either. As for low pricing, that has been a common factor for many years to help boost take-up vs established players and we haven’t seen this change much over the past year.

At the same time it’s worth noting that VM/nexfibre’s position is currently struggling with its own set of problems after joint venture partner Telefonica launched a strategic review, which has already impacted the operator’s ongoing deployment of FTTP broadband lines via nexfibre (here). Virgin Media has separately had some difficulty with losing customers from their broadband base – recent price hikes didn’t help (here) – and their plans for opening up Virgin’s existing network to wholesale via a new company (NetCo) have recently been paused.

Speaking of those NetCo plans, on Tuesday Fries said that the timing of Telefonica’s review was “highly unfortunate” and “not a well thought out position”. Fries added that the two sides would have to make a decision on whether to continue in the Joint Venture or “do something different” within the next 24 months, which in this fast-paced market is a worryingly long window of time to lose before arriving at a decision.

The truth is that the whole market, including VM/nexfibre, is currently under plenty of strain and almost everybody is busy adjusting strategies around that.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

News

AT&T is celebrating after the company achieved a major goal of passing 30 million serviceable locations across the United States.

By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

A major milestoe is being celebrated by AT&T after the company passed the halfway mark to their goal of reaching 60 million fiber passings across the United States.

AT&T announced reaching the benchmark earlier this week, which accompanied a statement from John Stankey, AT&T’s CEO.

He said the acconmplishment is a testament to the hard work from teams at AT&T.

“We’re proud to now pass more than 30 million fiber locations — halfway to our goal of reaching approximately 60 million homes and businesses across America,” Stankey said.

He also said AT&T has built the nation’s largest and fastest-growing fiber network.

“Our investments in fiber are fueling economic growth and creating jobs, while delivering the fast, reliable connectivity Americans expect – backed by the AT&T Guarantee,” Stankey also stated.

Recent growth in AT&T’s fiber network has occurred for a number of reasons, according to the firm.

The company cited growth “organic growth” to their regional fiber networks and their joint venture with Gigapower as some main drivers of growth.

Additionally, AT&T’s release said, “commercial open-access agreements, public-private partnerships and recently announced plans to acquire substantially all of Lumen’s Mass Markets fiber business,” have all contributed to AT&T’s continued fiber growth.

The deal with Lumen Mass Markets, reported in May, will see AT&T acquire “substantially all” of Lumen’s Mass Market fiber business, the company previously announced.

AT&T’s release at the time said the deal will see the acquired assets held by a new, fully owned subsidiary named NetworkCo.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026. The deal also remains subject to regulatory approval, AT&T’s release explained.

Get content like this delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to the Broadband Communities newsletter.

Learn more about Broadband Communities Summit 2025 in Houston.

Original article Total Telecom:Read More

For customers like Colin Walker, who lives in the hamlet of Willitoft to the South of York, the difference has been life-changing.

“It’s like winning the lottery. It has given me access to the world, within a second,” said Colin. “Getting full fibre broadband has made us part of the rest of the world, but I can still live in the countryside and keep my distance.”

Quickline, the rural broadband provider, was awarded the contracts for West Yorkshire and the York area (Lot 8) and South Yorkshire (Lot 20) in 2024 under the UK Government’s Project Gigabit programme.

Each contract includes phased delivery targets. By the end of March 2025, Quickline was required to connect 6,273 funded premises in West Yorkshire and the York area. This target was surpassed, with 6,426 homes and businesses connected, including premises in communities such as Harden, near Bingley and Bradshaw, near Thornton.

In South Yorkshire, the first milestone target of 3,621 addresses isn’t due until the end of June, but as of 31^st March, Quickline has achieved this number, well ahead of schedule. Communities benefiting include Barnby Dun, near Doncaster, Ealand, Keadby, and Todwick.

When including the addresses Quickline has reached as part of its commercial build across rural West and South Yorkshire, more than 30,000 addresses now have gigabit-capable connectivity.

Colin added: “If you can’t access decent internet nowadays, you are just left behind and forgotten – so being connected to full fibre broadband has made a massive difference to us.”

Telecoms Minister Chris Bryant said: “Quickline’s exceptional progress in Yorkshire shows what can be achieved when government and industry work together to tackle digital inequality, ensuring people like Colin can make the most of the modern world no matter where they live.

“By exceeding these first milestones and connecting over 10,000 government-funded properties ahead of schedule, we’re already delivering on our commitment to level up digital infrastructure across the country, creating a more connected Britain where geography is no barrier to opportunity.”

Dan Hague, Project Gigabit Delivery Director at Quickline, said: “These contracts are complex by nature, often involving challenging rural builds and limited existing infrastructure. That’s why we’re proud to not only hit, but exceed, our first milestones – particularly so in South Yorkshire.

“We’re still in the early stages of our Project Gigabit contracts and have a long way to go, and we remain focused on staying on track and delivering the broadband connectivity that rural communities across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire need and deserve.

“Thanks to the commitment of our teams and build partners, we’re connecting thousands of premises and making real progress on closing the digital divide.”

Project Gigabit is the UK Government funded programme enabling hard-to-reach communities access fast, reliable, gigabit-capable broadband, reaching parts of the UK that might otherwise miss out on upgrades to next-generation speeds.