Gigaclear installing Fibre to the Home in Yarwell

The long haul Gigaclear fibre connection from Kings Cliffe to Wansford is installed from the Wansford Surgery through Yarwell to the coal yard at Nassington, and from the top end of Nassington out to Apethorpe.

In passing through the village and past other properties they are installing individual fibres and connection points at each house. Photos to follow.

It was interesting to see that SME businesses in Wansford are eligible for vouchers to fund superfast broadband connections - anyone who pays business rates to Peterborough City Council looks to be able to get £100 - £3000.

Wansford is showing ~20% progress on the Gigameter http://www.gigaclear.com/postcode-checker/

Yarwell has a Superfast broadband cabinet

Sat on the grass verge, waiting for a fibre connection from Wansford I think :-

 Before the cabinet itself landed :-

Fibre to the home in Wansford ?

Gigaclear are now digging in Apethorpe and look to be expanding their horizons to incorporate Wansford and Yarwell (Nassington too).

http://www.gigaclear.com/ has a "Progress in my community" tool where you can enter your postcode, drop down to select your address and register your interest.

Gigaclear's business model is to get about 30% or so of properties signed up before they commit to supply. "Signed up" means committed to taking the service as opposed to "expressing an interest".

There's a meeting scheduled for the end of the month :-

Q&A Broadband Event

Yarwell Village Hall, 48 Main Street, Yarwell, PE8 6PR

Thursday, 29th January 2015 from 19:30 to 21:30

Gigaclear's service provides a fibre-optic connection into homes and businesses, capable of very fast speeds and not dependent on distance from the telephone exchange or cabinet. No copper wire is involved and you don't need a phone line to have a Gigaclear connection - you can make phone calls over the fibre optic using equipment in your home etc but this will depend on power being available.

Unlike BT's service which is sold Wholesale via other ISPs, and other ISPs using BT wires (Talk Talk and Sky), the Gigaclear service is a single provider for the physical connection and the internet service - although they are developing methods to allow others to "re-sell" their service.

Here's a screenshot of their price comparison as of 11:00 21/01/2015 :-

The "Call Plan" in the Gigaclear services is actually the price of a Vonage VoIP telephone service, in other words if you want a land line phone over your Gigaclear fibre the price is £7/month and it includes bundled call time.

New cabinet in Wansford

Excitement ! A new street cabinet (PCP) has been installed in Wansford very close to the telephone exchange. This will be to provide an intercept point for lines currently fed direct from the exchange, thereby enabling connection to a Superfast (FTTC) broadband cabinet which is yet to appear.

The new cabinet on Old North Road is shown in the first photo below. The second photo (I need to try harder with that one) shows the new FTTC cabinet installed in Nassington which will be fed from the Wansford exchange. So we are going to see speeds up to 80 Mbit/s becoming available soon in our area.

Meanwhile, Kingscliffe and Apethorpe are edging towards a full Fibre to the Home (FTTH) service offering symmetrical speeds up to 1 Gbit/s. The area has been split in two as the new Persimmon estate is apparently off-limits for digging for 12 months and Persimmon are declining to engage with Gigaclear. The "old village" and Apethorpe are 80% of the way to the required minimum connections, the area including the new build is floundering at 30%.

Gigaclear activity in the area

Just an update post, nothing concrete happening on the ground in Wansford but it's interesting to see that Gigaclear are pitching an up to 1 Gbit/s "fibre to the home" service in Kingscliffe and Apethorpe.

As the Northants BDUK project didn't propose an upgrade for that area, and unlike Wansford they have only BT's first generation 8M broadband with no Talk Talk or Sky equipment, the area should be an attractive market.

Gigaclear work on the basis of getting 30 or 40% of a population signed up before the project starts, to give them a viable project. They are also pitching in villages around Peterborough where they will use a connection to the Peterborough Core fibre project for their onward connection to the internet.

The Kingscliffe project may well get its fibre feed from Wansford where there is a fibre interconnect in the telephone exchange.


At the time of writing Kingscliffe has just over 40% of the required commitments to Gigaclear.

Connecting Cambridgeshire publishes maps

The local BDUK project Connecting Cambridgeshire has published an updated map at http://www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk/map/ with additional details for each parish.

Wansford's entry can be found here and it says "Superfast broadband is forecast to be available in your area between September and December 2015".

Cabinet hunting

Looking in the bushes around Wansford and the A1 is not without its moral hazards, but yesterday I found the elusive Cabinet 4 of the Wansford exchange on the slip road off the A1 :-

Note the footway box cover in front of it. This serves Wansford, Huntingdonshire or Stibbington North or whatever the correct term is for the bit of what we all call Wansford that is South of the river. The Post Office, Chapel Court, London Road, etc all show up as served by Cab 4 on the BT Line checker, as do the houses up on Elton Road Stibbington cum Sibson, the Stibbington truck stop and Nene Valley Railway. Cab 4 appears to serve the whole area to the south of the River Nene that is connected to the Wansford Exchange.

Previously we noted that Cab 5 at Yarwell crossroads serves the village of Yarwell, Cab 2 on Parkway / Station Rd Nassington serves Nassington including Mill Road which means they have a fairly long run to the cab and a double-back from the exchange. Suttons garage is also on Cab 2 with a cable run of 1.9km so it will be interesting to see what uplift in speed is possible there.

Sutton village is the home to Cab 7 on The Drift at the junction with Nene Way. A summary so far..

1. TBA
2. Nassington
3. TBA
4. Wansford south, Stibbington, Sibson.
5. Yarwell
6. TBA
7. Sutton
8. Wittering