Rural broadband project Fibre GarDen has announced prices for its next-gen services.
The entry level 30Mbps with a 40GB data allowance product will cost £25/month, while the top tier unlimited 100Mbps package will cost a little more at £45/month.
That’s a little above the average prices for broadband in the UK but Fibre GarDen will also provide an above average service. Fibre GarDen’s network will see every home in Garsdale and Dentdale connected to FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) broadband.
Compared to the entry level superfast FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet)-based services from BT, Sky and TalkTalk, the prices actually compare pretty well.
BT Infinity 1 costs £30.99/month for an up to 38Mbps service with a 20GB monthly cap. Sky Fibre unlimited offers unlimited downloads and speeds of up to 38Mbps for £35.40/month and TalkTalk’s entry level FTTC service costs just £29.45/month for download speeds of up to 38Mbps and unlimited downloads.
While all of the above services should provide upload speeds of up to 9Mbps, Fibre GarDen’s services are symmetrical, meaning you get 30Mbps or 100Mbps up as well as down.
The nature of FTTP connections means that speeds don’t degrade over distances, like FTTC broadband currently does.
Fellow FTTP providers Hyperoptic offer a symmetrical 100Mbps service for £25/month while Gigaclear’s entry level 50Mbps down and up service will set you back £37/month.
Fibre GarDen recently said that it could roll out a gigabit broadband service in the future, if customers wanted it.
Andrew Fleck, Chairman of Fibre GarDen, told industry site ISPreview.co.uk: “We are delighted that this project has reached the stage where we can inform the Digital Dales’ residents and business owners just what services will be on offer to them.
“These services will literally change the lives of residents and businesses in this area, who for so long have been overlooked by other network operators and therefore have become digitally excluded.”
The project was conceived after local residents and businesses were concerned that the national BDUK (Broadband Delivery for the UK) project wouldn’t give everyone the services they wanted.
Parent company Digital Dales managed to raise £382,500 of public funding from the Government’s £20 million Rural Community Broadband Fund and net an additional £35,000 from the Yorkshire Dales National Park Sustainable Development Fund.
The spades will start hitting the ground on October 5 and the first customers are expected to be able to order by Christmas. The entire network, connecting every property in the two villages, is estimated to be finished by August 2015.
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