ISP GoFibre Start Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout in Rural Teesdale

Rural broadband ISP GoFibre (BorderLink) has announced that they’ve entered the building phase of their Government state-aid supported £6.6 million Project Gigabit contract, which was awarded in September 2022 (here), to upgrade more than 4,000 hard-to-reach Teesdale premises in Northern England with 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology (Lot 4.01).

The new project aims to cover towns, villages and hamlets across the region. Construction will take place until 2025 with homes and businesses across Middleton-in-Teesdale, Barnard Castle, Gainford, West Auckland and neighbouring communities able to access gigabit-capable broadband from as early as late September 2023.

We should point out that GoFibre secured a huge investment of £164m from Gresham House (BSIF) last year (here) to build their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across 500,000 premises in the North of England and Scottish Borders over the next 3-years – by around the end of 2025, which the new contract will also help to achieve.

Neil Conaghan, CEO of GoFibre, said:

“For years, rural towns across northern England, including Teesdale, have faced a persistent digital connectivity problem, which has left local communities frustrated and very much behind in terms of infrastructure upgrades.

Through our partnership with the UK government and Durham County Council, construction efforts are now underway to help tackle this digital divide and isolation head on. Our new network will equip residents and businesses in these areas with the tools required to drive innovation and success, both now and in decades to come.

We appreciate your patience during the construction phase and are excited to unveil the benefits of full fibre connectivity to Teesdale later this year.”

Customers of the new service can expect to pay from £36 per month for a 100Mbps package on a 24-month term with an included wireless router, which rises to £69 per month for their top 1000Mbps plan. The latter also comes with a bonus Wi-Fi extender (this can optionally be taken on other plans for just £5 per month extra).