Spring Fibre has secured an investment of up to £155 million from R&M’s (River and Mercantile) Infrastructure business, which supports our plan to build a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network. This network will then be made available to other ISPs on a wholesale basis.
Spring Fibre’s plans are to create a network rising to more than 1 million premises passed over time. Beginning in smaller towns that have been forgotten by the major operators, our build focuses on areas with poor internet provision and will deliver a major boost to many under-served communities and businesses.
Rosalind Singleton, CEO of Spring Fibre, said:
“We are delighted to commence this partnership with R&M which shares our vision of building first class sustainable networks and long-lasting relationships. FTTP (fibre to the premises) rollouts across the country are still not matching customer demand or covering enough locations.
We are confident we can expand and accelerate access in areas that would benefit most and expect our first homes to be live within the next six months, with many more to follow.”
Ian Berry, Head of Infrastructure at R&M, added:
“As in many countries, we continue to see growing demand for better and faster access to data across the UK. However, the provision of infrastructure is often skewed to larger cities, meaning that many areas of the country remain under-served to the detriment of the people that live, work or operate businesses there.
In helping to solve this problem, Spring Fibre’s network will make a significant positive societal impact. From an investment perspective, we consider data infrastructure is a critical asset and investments such as this help us provide reliable, long term income to our clients.”
