Bringing gigabit capable fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to more areas of rural Devon and Somerset

Airband is delighted to have been contracted by Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) to deliver full fibre broadband to more than 40,000 homes and businesses in some of the most rural areas of Devon and Somerset by 2024.

We are committed to bringing ultrafast internet connections to rural communities and support the local economy.

Our plans for your area

We started surveying for the new network in April 2021 and since then we have been out and about in hundreds of hamlets and villages, working closely with local landowners, communities, and parish councils, to work towards our goal of connecting thousands of homes and businesses with full fibre broadband.

Our programme involves 60 individual community projects and, by the time construction is complete, we will have connected nearly 2,500 miles of new fibre network.

Challenges and solutions

As a comparatively new industry, the fibre sector faces inevitable challenges as it evolves in a period of rapid growth across the UK. Along with most other alt-nets, Airband is responding to these challenges and constantly adapting.

Significant progress has been made in the establishment of mature supply-chain relationships with sub-contractors. We have reduced the number of smaller sub-contractors and instead now work with larger experienced contractors, allowing us to provide consistent fluid work over the short- to medium-term.  This approach also has a positive impact on access to purchase of critical equipment and materials which is an area where there have been some shortages in recent years, leading to smaller suppliers losing out to larger operators.

Delivering fibre to rural and hard-to-reach communities presents a unique set of challenges. CDS contracts, targeted at premises with the lowest speeds, are almost exclusively comprised of rural builds and these challenges have a disproportionate significance for contract holders, as compared to commercial alt-nets operating in the region.

The proliferation of fibre builds across the region has increasingly resulted in more than one fibre provider needing to work on (and close) roads in any given rural parish. Providers are often denied access to the roads they need to work on because these roads are simultaneously providing the diversion route for another provider’s road closures. Airband and partners in the region’s highways teams are collaborating to develop increasingly agile solutions to this congestion, involving co-location of works, night-working and advanced planning. These road closure/traffic management permits are therefore dependant on working around other sectors and utility companies who also need to access the highway networks in the region and the delays this can result in.

Whilst much of the national fibre deployment strategy is predicated on significant use of PIA (Passive Infrastructure Access) there is still a need for providers to erect some poles where none currently exist (or are at capacity). Recent experience shows that community sentiment to new poles can be hard to predict, with ducted urban-fringe residential areas being particularly sensitive. We acknowledge that our initial approach to notifying communities was lacking and have significantly improved our consultation through engagement with parish councils, running webinars and the establishment of a dedicated route for queries about new poles.

Where build moves from the highway onto private land, the ability to secure landowner approvals is critical to rural builds. We have revised the wording of wayleave agreements and engaged more proactively, especially in explaining the consequences of a single landowner’s refusal to the wider community.

Resolving all the above issues is vital even before a provider can begin to physically build, at which point we need to address the usual expected (and planned-for) challenges of tree cutting, bad weather in the winter, critical tourist routes in the summer and ongoing recurrences of COVID.

Although CDS seeks to connect as many homes and businesses without superfast* broadband (*minimum 30Mbps download) as possible not every premise can be included within the public funding available. For all homes and businesses without superfast broadband which cannot be connected under these contracts, CDS will work the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) and the commercial sector to find alternative solutions. For more information click here.

Our map shows the contracted areas – the “lots” – and the timetable shows the community “clusters” or areas within those lots where we are working for CDS.

Although we cannot yet say exactly which homes and businesses will be connected until surveys and designs are complete, our teams are cracking on to get your areas connected as fast as possible.

Download map >

Timetable

So that we can build the network in the quickest and most efficient way possible, we have divided the survey and construction work into 60 community projects, each with a cluster of community areas we will be connecting.

Our timetable shows the contract “lot” areas, the community “clusters” in each lot and our current completion date. We will update information here every month as the work progresses, so you’ll be able to keep track of what’s happening in your area.

When we have completed the survey and designs for each community cluster we will update progress here on the post-code checker and we will also be in touch directly with you and your community.

Table updated on 10/07/23

Working with your community

Before we arrive in your area our friendly community team will be in touch with your community and will keep you and your neighbours informed of progress.

For more information, please email [email protected].

Connecting Devon and Somerset

Connecting Devon and Somerset is backed by Government and led by a partnership of local councils to fund the construction of new superfast and ultrafast broadband networks in areas not covered by the commercial market.

Find out more