UK Government says gigabit-capable coverage now sits at 81% of UK households
Cornish telco Wildanet has been awarded a £41m contract to roll out gigabit-capable broadband to more than 16,800 homes and businesses in East Cornwall, West Cornwall and the island of St Mary’s, located within the Isles of Scilly. The investment is part of the UK Government’s £5 billion Project Gigabit rollout to hard-to-reach homes and businesses.
It follows an investment of £36 million by the government in 2023 which saw Wildanet awarded two contracts to connect around19,250 homes and businesses in South West and Mid Cornwall. The announcement takes total Project Gigabit investment in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to £74 million, with the aim of connecting more than 37,000 premises
Initial work on network planning and surveys will start soon and installation works are expected to get under way in Autumn 2024.
Wildanet’s contract is one of half a dozen awarded today around the UK. The government said there is now 31 local and regional Project Gigabit contracts in place, representing more than £1.3 billion of investment to bring gigabit-capable broadband to over 780,000 hard-to-reach premises across the UK.
Gigabit progress
Since December, the government said it has signed 15 new contracts covering Kent, Leicestershire and Warwickshire, East and West Sussex, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and East Berkshire, Nottinghamshire and West of Lincolnshire, West Yorkshire and York Area, East Gloucestershire, South Wiltshire, South Yorkshire, the Peak District, West Herefordshire and Forest of Dean, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, Dorset and South Somerset, and Mid-West Shropshire.
Combined, these contracts represent more than £714 million of government investment to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to up to 370,000 premises. The government aims to award the first two call-off contracts under the cross-regional framework in the summer.
“We use the cross-regional intervention in areas where there has been minimal or no credible market interest in bidding for regional or local procurements, or where initial supplier appetite has fallen away,” it stated.
“We are engaging with the market for additional call-offs in areas including North Wales, South West Wales, North Somerset, South Devon, South and East Shropshire, North Herefordshire, Essex, and Central and North Scotland. We will also include the North East, as the awarded supplier for the previous procurement was unable to complete signature, as well as Mid Devon and South West Somerset, where supplier interest fell away during the previous procurement process,” it added. The supplier initially awarded the contract for Worcestershire is no longer able to sign so the government is currently exploring alternative options for this procurement.
Local telco
Wildanet, which has been backed by specialist alternative asset manager Gresham House’s sustainable infrastructure strategy with close to £100m invested since 2020, has grown to become a major regional employer, more than doubling its workforce in the last 18 months to over 220 staff as well as driving significant economic activity and employment through its commitment to using local businesses in its supply chain.
“The latest investment through Project Gigabit and the awarding of this contract is excellent news for Cornwall and for its many remote and hard-to-reach communities. It will help to bridge the digital divide, rectifying the historic imbalance in rural broadband provision whilst furthering the Government’s ambition to grow the economy by rolling out first-class digital infrastructure,” said Wildanet CEO Helen Wylde-Archibald (above left).