The UK government’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme has today awarded two new contracts – worth a combined £190m – to ISP Quickline, which will see them extend their 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) network to almost 108,000 extra premises in hard to reach rural areas across Lincolnshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Yorkshire.
The development reflects another significant win for Quickline, which has previously also secured the Project Gigabit deployment contracts for both the West Yorkshire and York Area (Lot 8 – 28,000 premises, £60m) and South Yorkshire (Lot 20 – 32,100 premises, £44m). We’ve also previously reported that they were going to win the North Yorkshire (Lot 31) contract too (here), but today brings official confirmation of the details.
Just to recap. Project Gigabit is working to help extend 1Gbps (download) capable networks to reach at least 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025, before aiming to achieve “nationwide” coverage (c. 99%) by 2030 (here). Commercial investment is expected to deliver more than 80% of this, which leaves the government’s scheme to focus on tackling the rest (mostly rural and some sub-urban areas), where the private sector alone often fails.
The project uses a number of different methods to tackle this challenge (e.g. vouches and investment in dark fibre builds), but the largest part of the scheme involves a gap-funded subsidy approach – the Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS). This is where smaller local, larger regional or major cross-regional contracts are awarded to network operators who can help to build their gigabit-capable infrastructure into the most challenging areas (final 20%).
The Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, which manages Project Gigabit, has already awarded a sizeable number of deployment contracts to various network operators and the latest ones – North Yorkshire (Lot 31) and East Riding of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (Lot 23) – have just gone to Quickline, which now holds all of the programme’s build contracts for the entirety of Yorkshire.
The East Riding of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire contract aims to reach around 72,000 additional premises, while the North Yorkshire contract targets approximately 36,000 premises (total of 108,000). As a result of the investment, Quickline will now also expand its complementary commercial network to a further 107,000 premises in these same rural areas.
This brings the total public investment in full fibre broadband delivered by Quickline to nearly £300m. All four contracts will bring full fibre broadband with public funding to almost 170,000 rural premises, which rises to 360,000 when we factor in the provider’s supporting commercial build.
Quickline CEO, Sean Royce, said:
“The award of these latest contracts underlines our position as the primary Project Gigabit broadband provider in rural Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
We have now won all four contracts we have bid for, making us the UK’s second largest Project Gigabit regional delivery partner and the only provider to be awarded a contract serving England’s largest county, Yorkshire, under the programme.
We are a regionally focused provider, and through our work as part of the Project Gigabit programme and beyond, we’re laser focused on delivering on our mission to connect rural communities to a world of possibilities when it comes to having access to fast and reliable broadband and our desire to make a positive social impact and create economic growth for these rural areas.”
Chris Bryant, New UK Digital Infrastructure Minister, said:
“Accelerating the rollout of fast broadband and modernising the country’s digital infrastructure is crucial to kickstarting an era of sustained economic growth in every part of the UK.
Our £190m investment in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire will heal the headache of endless buffering felt by too many in rural communities, while building the infrastructure needed to attract new investment and ensure the benefits of digital technology reverberate across every corner of the country.”
The rural North Yorkshire contract will aim to cover large areas of the county, from around the seaside towns of Whitby and Scarborough, across to Knaresborough and onto Settle, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales – the build itself is actually starting in Settle.
Similarly, the second contract covers the East Riding of Yorkshire and large parts of Lincolnshire, as well as North and North East Lincolnshire, and includes the rural communities of Holme upon Spalding Moor, Kilham and Easington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, as well as villages and hamlets down to Long Sutton in the Lincolnshire Fens. The build in this area will start in North Kelsey.
The awarding of the two new contracts will also see Quickline broaden its commitment to skills, training and community support under its extensive social values programme. For example, they’ve committed to create more than 200 apprenticeships in the areas covered by the contracts through collaboration with build partners, as well as delivering over 2,500 accredited training courses and online work experience for 1,400 students.
Quickline is separately being supported by funding of c.£500m from Northleaf Capital Partners. The provider currently holds a wider aspiration to cove around 500,000 premises in rural and semi-rural areas across Northern England and beyond with “ultrafast broadband” via both their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) and 5G based fixed wireless technology “by 2025” (here). Some 200,000 of those rural premises will be tackled by their wireless network, with the other half or more coming from FTTP.
Residential customers reached by their new full fibre network are typically charged from £29 per month on a 24-month term for 100Mbps (50Mbps upload) speeds with free installation, and that goes up to £49 for their top 900Mbps (450Mbps upload) tier. The first 3 months of service are also free.
Project Gigabit GIS Contract Award History
➤ Wessex Internet for North Dorset (Lot 14.01) in August 2022 (here)
➤ GoFibre for Teesdale (Lot 4.01) in September 2022 (here)
➤ GoFibre for North Northumberland (Lot 34.01) in October 2022 (here)
➤ Fibrus for Cumbria (Lot 28) in November 2022 (here)
➤ Wildanet for Central Cornwall (Lot 32.03) and South West Cornwall (Lot 32.02) in January 2023 (here)
➤ CityFibre for Cambridgeshire (Lot 5) in March 2023 (here)
➤ Wessex Internet for the New Forest (Lot 27.01) in April 2023 (here)
➤ Freedom Fibre for North Shropshire (Lot 25.02) in May 2023 (here)
➤ CityFibre for Norfolk (Lot 7), Suffolk (Lot 2) and Hampshire (Lot 27) in July 2023 (here)
➤ Gigaclear for South Oxfordshire (Lot 13.01) and North Oxfordshire (Lot 13.02) in Nov 2023 (here)
➤ Connect Fibre for North East Staffordshire (Lot 19.01) in Nov 2023 (here)
➤ Connect Fibre for Derbyshire (Lot 3) in Dec 2023 (here)
➤ CityFibre for Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire & East Berkshire (Lot 26), Leicestershire & Warwickshire (Lot 11), West & East Sussex (Lot 16 & 1), Kent (Lot 29) and Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes (Lot 12) in Feb 2024 (here)
➤ Connexin for Nottinghamshire & West Lincolnshire (Lot 10) in Feb 2024 (here)
➤ Quickline for West Yorkshire and York Area (Lot 8) in Feb 2024 (here)
➤ Gigaclear for East Gloucestershire (Lot 18) in Feb 2024 (here)
➤ Wessex Internet for South Wiltshire (Lot 30) in Mar 2024 (here)
➤ Quickline for South Yorkshire (Lot 20) in Apr 2024 (here)
➤ FullFibre for West Herefordshire and the Forest of Dean (Lot 15) in Apr 2024 (here)
➤ FullFibre for Peak District (Lot 3.01) in Apr 2024 (here)
➤ Wessex Internet for Dorset and South Somerset (Lot 14) in Apr 2024 (here)
➤ Wildanet for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (Lot 32) in Apr 2024 (here)
➤ Voneus for Mid West Shropshire (Lot 25.01) in Apr 2024 (here)
➤ Freedom Fibre for Cheshire (Lot 17) in May 2024 (here)
➤ Quickline for North Yorkshire (Lot 31) and East Riding of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (Lot 23) in July 2024 (here)