Broadway Partners secure £145m in funding for gigabit fibre rollout

Broadway Partners have secured a £145m investment from Downing LLP to fund the deployment of a new fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband network which will cover 250,000 locations across mostly rural parts of Scotland and Wales by 2025.

Broadway Partners entered the market in 2016 with a rollout of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) networks in remote areas, but has recently started to deploy FTTP networks across several villages in rural Wales.

The ISP’s existing network covers parts of Ayrshire, Arran, Stirlingshire, Inverness-shire, Monmouthshire, and Pembrokeshire.

The network provider announced in 2020 that they had plans to extend their network to cover half a million homes and businesses in the UK by the end of 2022. However, they have a new revised target of just 250,000 premises by 2025.

Broadway Partners intends to extend their fibre-optic network into new areas in Wales, including Powys, Carmarthenshire, and Ceredigion.

CEO of Broadway Partners, Michael Armitage, said: “The investment from Downing LLP will enable Broadway Partners to accelerate its rural broadband programme, offering vital connectivity to businesses and households in parts of the country that other providers can’t reach. We are fortunate to have had Souter Investments as our provider of funding and wise counsel since 2018, and their expertise and guidance have been invaluable as we have grown from ambitious start-up to even more ambitious challenger. We are looking forward to the next phase of our mission with Downing with confidence and optimism.”

Downing LLP’s Sean Moore said: “We’re delighted to be working with Broadway Partners to accelerate its plans to bring full fibre into Wales and Scotland. We believe that digital infrastructure, particularly in rural communities, is a key enabler of economic growth and social well-being within the communities that it serves. Specifically, gigabit-capable fibre provides a future-proof solution, ensuring that the targeted towns and villages are not left behind. We look forward to supporting the team with their growth ambitions over the coming years.”

Broadway Partners are yet to reveal exactly how many premises are already covered by their network but have said that its existing deployments cover “thousands of premises”.

Harry Pererra

Harry turns on his experience in journalism and programming to write about the latest news in the world of tech and the environemtn. When he isn’t writing for usave he is working towards his Blue Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and prefers dogs to cats.

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