ABINGDON, UK – Voneus has announced it is partnering with Gigaclear to accelerate the adoption of ultrafast broadband services in rural communities across the UK. The partnership sees Voneus become a Gigaclear Retail Services Provider (RSP), offering residential and business customers a wide range of broadband services over Gigaclear’s fibre network, with the ability to deliver ultrafast with speeds of up to 1,000Mb/s (1 Gb/s).
Through the partnership with Voneus, Gigaclear can expand its existing fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network of more than 200 communities across 20 counties in the UK, by adding new customers to its ultrafast network. This will offer customers access to a wider range of services, all of which are backed up by Voneus’ local customer support. In areas where Gigaclear is unable to reach immediately, Voneus has the ability to quickly deploy superfast wireless broadband, enabling a greater number of rural communities to connect to high-speed broadband until full fibre broadband is rolled out to their locations.
‘Just like Voneus, Gigaclear is entirely focused on bridging the digital divide for those rural communities which, for far too long, have been stuck in the broadband slow lane,’ said Paul Lawrence, director of strategic partnerships at Voneus. ‘By joining forces, the two companies can offer genuinely high-speed broadband services while at the same time cut waiting times. This partnership will provide rural communities with internet speeds that exceed those available in urban centres.’
The village of Rode in Somerset is one of the first communities set to benefit from this new partnership.
‘A couple of years ago, our village had download speeds of below one Megabit per second. Surfing the web was a thoroughly frustrating experience, while the idea of streaming movies or making video calls was completely unthinkable,’ said Steve Eyles, chairman of the Rode Parish Council. ‘This all changed when Voneus hooked us up to its broadband infrastructure, which transformed the lives of the residents and businesses of Rode. To know that we, a small village in Somerset, could soon gain access to even faster, Gigabit speeds is mind blowing, and illustrates how committed these two firms are to supporting rural communities.’
‘Voneus’ reputation for delivering excellent customer service, its understanding of the challenges associated with connecting rural communities, as well as its ambitious plans to grow its network footprint and range of services, make it an ideal retail partner,’ said Joe Frost, business development director, Gigaclear. ‘Together we can provide rural communities with a range of future-proofed broadband services that will help them thrive, both socially and economically.’
