Swish Fibre reveals next 22 UK towns for 10Gbps Broadband

LONDON — New ISP Swish Fibre, which last year began work to extend their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 250,000 premises across the Home Counties (i.e. just outside London), has unveiled a full list of 33 poorly served towns (22 new additions) where their service is due to be rolled out next.

Swish Fibre was acquired by Fern Trading (they also own Jurassic Fibre in the South West of England) at the end of 2019, which formed part of a “long-term funding deal” that they said would enable them to unlock £250m of investment. At around the same time, the provider began building their new “full fibre” network in parts of Buckinghamshire.

The initial 11 locations announced at the end of last year reflected roughly 50,000 premises and the first customers are due to go live on that network in Marlow from July 2020, which will soon be followed by Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield. Surveying and planning is complete for these towns and work is already underway in Gerrards Cross, with Beaconsfield due to start in Autumn 2020.

As things stand, Swish Fibre will be active in at least 10 of the towns in its roadmap by June 2021. On top of that they’ve expanded their roll-out list to total 33 locations (mostly towns) across the Home Counties of England, which once completed should achieve their initial target of 250,000 premises.

Swish’s 33 Rollout Locations:

Next 22 Locations (June 2020):

The ISP is primarily aiming to tackle “underserved towns and villages where broadband availability is poor and there is strong demand for ultrafast broadband services.” Admittedly, some of the aforementioned locations already have some degree of full fibre coverage (e.g. Gigaclear in Sevenoaks and Virgin Media in East Grinstead), which could make for an interesting clash of commercial rivals.

According to Swish, the new towns “have been carefully selected as commercially viable, following an extensive evaluation process undertaken by Swish Fibre and independent analysts.”

The accelerated construction work has apparently not come at the expense of any lag-time in engaging with the local community in Marlow. Adapting quickly to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Swish Fibre team have already engaged with hundreds of Marlow residents via regular video call sessions and Q&As, as well as one-to-one customer engagement by telephone and email.

Despite being one of the youngest provider’s in this market, Swish is already making better progress than some of their more established peers in the alternative network space.