Hyperoptic Doubles Fibre Broadband Connections

Fibre broadband start-up Hyperoptic has said it has reached 20,000 connections in London, doubling the customer base for its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) product – which goes up to 1Gbps – since October.

The start-up is currently targeting blocks of 100 or more flats in densely populated parts of London, where it can minimise installation costs and see the best possible return on investment. The company said it is working with developers and landlords to convince them to “future-proof” their properties with a direct fibre connection.

Growing demand

Hyperoptic’s headline offering is a 1Gbps service that costs £50 per month, but it also offers a 100 Mbps service for £25 and a 20 Mbps service for £12.50. Most customers are currently opting for the cheaper, slower services, the company admits; but it argues that the fibre connection itself is what matters, with history indicating that demand for bandwidth will only continue to grow.

The fastest offerings from BT and Virgin Media reach speeds of 100 Mbps, in other words 10 times slower than Hyperoptic’s flagship service. Hyperoptic’s service is also symmetric, meaning upload speeds equal download speeds, while uploads from BT and Virgin Media are considerably slower than downloads.

Google is building an experimental 1 Gbps “Google Fibre” network in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas, pitching its service as an integrated Internet and television product.

In October Hyperoptic said it had so far laid cable in Barnet, Croydon, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster, and was also set to provide services to London Docklands and Canary Wharf.

The company encourages residents in a multi-tenant property to register their interest on Hyperoptic’s website, as well as getting the permission of the landlord or property manager. If enough residents sign up, the company connects fibre directly to the property using hubs connected to a HyperHub.

Expansion

Hyperoptic said it plans to announce its first business connections shortly, and is also developing content services; last week the company hired former BT Vision and Plusnet executive Darren Shenkin to develop television services.

“Our propositions are the next area of growth and differentiation for Hyperoptic,” stated Hyperoptic managing director Dana Tobak. “(Shenkin’s) experience and insight into this sector will be invaluable to help us shake up the broadband sector with some disruptive and different approaches. Content is changing and without a reliable and hyperfast underlying broadband, consumers will lose out.”

Other plans include expansion outside of London, but this has yet to be decided definitively, Hyperoptic said.

Tobak co-founded Hyperoptic with chairman Boris Ivanovic in 2011. In 2004 the two founded high-speed ISP Be Unlimited, later sold to O2 and acquired by BSkyB earlier this month along with the rest of Telefonica UK’s consumer broadband and fixed-line telephony business.

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