WightFibre has announced that over 40,000 premises on the Isle of Wight can now receive its full-fibre broadband service, including for the first time properties in Ventnor, Lake, Nettlestone and Seaview.
The majority of the homes in Sandown and Shanklin are also ready for service, with cables already laid to a further 10,000 homes with service to those homes scheduled to become available over the Summer.
This means WightFibre’s Gigabit Island Project is well over the halfway mark with a total of 460km of trenches dug to date. The company expects service to be available to 60,000 premises by the end of the year and to 75,000 homes by the end of 2023, with an ultimate target of around 80,000 premises. This is 96% of all premises – a very high percentage coverage, particularly for a rural area such as the Isle of Wight.
John Irvine, CEO of WightFibre, said:
“We are really pleased to have connected our first full-fibre customers in Ventnor and Seaview. We expect the network build across the Island to be largely complete by the end of 2023”.
“Our new full-fibre, future-proof network is second to none on the planet and this, coupled with our very high levels of customer care, is giving customers what they want – fast reliable broadband that just works.”
WightFibre’s full-fibre, ultrafast and future-proof broadband is now live in Cowes, East Cowes, Newport, Wootton, Ryde, Lake, Nettlestone, Seaview, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventnor and are about to go live in Freshwater and Yarmouth – extending the company’s reach into the West of the Island.
Work on WightFibre’s Gigabit Island Project is ongoing in St Helens, Bembridge, Brading and numerous other towns and villages across the Island.
High levels of customer service? What a joke. We’ve had WightFibre cut off access to our car park, abuse the residents, cut off the electric in the middle of the night and two years after running their tat cables to the building we still can’t get their awful broadband. That’s without looking at the absolute chaos they have brought to all roads.
I Think it’s a total scam really they dig up roads install traffic light then don’t do the job for weeks total disgrace
The amount of people I encounter that will not be taking up this service based on the poor workmanship, horrendous disruption and poor attitude of wightfibre is phenomenal.
Well done WF, you have alienated your client base.
So Toby, you can sit buried at the end of mine and other people’s driveways, unloved and forgotten about.
Road closures, diversions coming to a place near you soon !!!!!!!
The island has seen more diversions than in snakes and ladders !!!!!!
And more to come ……
Island roads, re surface ,and s—- fibre come and dig it up again ,why can’t they co- ordinate work ??????
Oh sorry that would take planning !!!!!
I won’t be using S fibre ever …..
Exactly when are the pavements going to be sorted, now that they’ve been dug up and very crudely “made good” again by this awful company?
Why is wightfibre doing it when bt have a lot of ducts in the roads they’re digging up???
Also yes the workmen are w**kers to put it politely. Ended up moving the barriers and emptying the sand bags every evening to get to my house
I wonder how many properties are actually connected to there broadband? No one I no uses them
both my neighbours either side of me have Wightfibre, but one of those is our local Councillor so we are probably paying for it.
and I’ve noticed they’ve nailed their cable along the otherside of my wall,with no permission gained!!
absolute law unto themselves.
WIGHTFIBRE SURPRISES 10,000TH CUSTOMER WITH BRAND NEW TV – Island Echo – 24hr news, 7 days a week across the Isle of Wight
I can understand the logic for WightFibre to go into areas that had no or poor connectivity but why totally disrupt whole areas where there was no need.
I’m sick of having bus routes diverted for weeks on end which completely cut off parts of West Wight with no warning. Southern Vectis just say it’s not their problem.
Then add the number of times the temporary traffic lights are stuck on red or out of sequence, similarly, Island Roads say tough, not our problem.
I will never use wightFibre as they have no care for the local community regardless of their glossy rhetoric.
Article is incorrect. I live in East Cowes and although I get Wightfibre through an old copper phone line, they are refusing to give me a fibre connection because I live in a residential mobile home. This is despite them digging up a newly resurfaced road to lay a cable into the park entrance! Apparently it is up to me to obtain the park owner’s permission on their behalf to do the work necessary to connect me! I will not be renewing with them when the contract is up for renewal in March.
It’s Government funding they need to look where all the money is going they will run out ,just like island roads it should be over seen by independent agency s
I wonder how long Wight Fibre is going to be around after they finish laying all the cable. Apparently they’re millions of Pounds in debt and I’m not sure how they’re going to recoup those costs unless they sign up the majority of the population. At the moment, the only figures they’re giving out are how many people ‘could’ connect to it, not how many have.
From a personal perspective, even when 4 or 5 of us in our house are all using the internet at the same time for streaming etc it’s fine so there’s really no need to switch to cable.
Plus, I really don’t think they’ve made many friends with the constant digging up of our roads.
As my broadband service was out of contract I thought ‘why not give it a try’. Nice sales staff, but after running a cable to our telegraph pole they turned up 4 days later to ‘install’, unfortunately the original cable hanger doesn’t actually check that the cable is connected! So half a day later, no install, no broadband, no old provider and absolutely no idea when or if this will be rectified! Eventually told that it would be checked in 5 days, then passed for action (?) so a 2 week delay… meanwhile we would have no way of banking, paying bills, buying gas/electric thank god sky let us stay!! WF.. not yet!!
They should be made to pay for damaging all the recently resurfaced roads. Why has the council allowed
this? Also i do not know anybody who uses Crapfibre so what is the point
Wouldn’t touch them with any pole..
Connected in Ryde that’s a joke, I investigated it to be connected in PO33 2BB and told to wait for 2 years
Hello, wighfibre put in all our lines etc inside and outside house. Only to be told they cannot connect us. That was in March this year, we call them every week and each week we get another answer why we cannot be connected, this time it was we only have one cherry picker, we don’t climb the poles. You lucky people in Ventnor who have access to fibre… We haven’t, when, where how when will we get ours.
Why would they climb a pole? the optics run underground
spot on fella
Only half way!!! So another few years of chaos. God help us.
I have been with them since BT said they are putting their prices up by 3.5% each year to pay for guess what? Fiber connections around the country. Not only are Wightfibre cheaper by £8 a month they give me a speed of 500 when BT could only give me 45. Also it’s only a month by month contract, no connection fee and buffering is a thing of the past. By the way the cost is being underwritten by the government as a long term loan as they want the Island to be the first area fully digital. I think it was well worth the few weeks of disrupting we had in my road.
We’ll come and live in my village. Don’t think your comments will be the same, or you can take a load of hassle.
re-pavements the tarmac refill seems ok after work they have done but the border banding strip either side is breaking up twofold everywhere looks a mess
Been with them for6years in arreton not fibre very fast no buffering and cheaper and better than bt or sky,any problems sorted quick like when cabinet taken out by driver crashing into it next day they arrived with dongle for free whilst they installed new cabinet.
Seem to be lot of negative comments? Perhaps I am just lucky!