After a long gap we have another Project Gigabit contract (the last Project Gigabit contract was signed in July). Gigaclear is now signed on to two contracts with a combined value of £26.5 million with the aim of delivering gigabit capable broadband to around 10,000 premises.
The two contracts cover North and South Oxfordshire and work is expected to start in early 2024 and the first premises going live before the end of 2024.
An indication hopefully of the rural nature of these properties is that the sum per premises passed looks to be £2,650 and so while we are sure some villages with decent superfast speeds will benefit hopefully a lot of the very slow ones will benefit and preferably at an earlier stage of the contract.
Indication of the areas of South Oxfordshire where Gigaclear will deliver Gigabit capable broadband
Indication of the areas of North Oxfordshire where Gigaclear will deliver Gigabit capable broadband
The indicative maps give a vague idea of the deployment areas, but are of such low resolution its hard/impossible to say much more that the roll-out is not in Oxford itself and a few other towns that can be spotted if you squint enought.
The low resolution of the maps is not new, other contracts have seen similarly hard to read images, if its a policy matter than not much we can do, but if the issue is around hosting map tiles and the map page then given a set of the map tiles for all the various Project Gigabit projects we can host them on our existings maps.thinkbroadband.com system. Have not talked to DSIT on this, as its a Saturday and have only just woken up myself, but am leaning towards policy as they don’t want to be too specific on roll-out locations at this early stage of each contract.
As the roll-out is by Gigaclear its safe to say they will be building full-fibre to the 10,000 premises, and this is just a fraction of of the over 420,000 premises they have built to in the last few years. Not all Gigaclear contracts have gone to plan, e.g. Connecting Devon and Somerset, but and while there are questions these latest contracts will raise they have built of lot of full-fibre since then. Hopefully practices to fibre in hedges or loosely buried by the side of a road are tales from the past and the build will be to a standard that will last a century, rather than becoming a patchwork of repairs in t3 to 5 years time.
Test your broadband speed
Follow us on X for the latest broadband news 
Gigaclear’s “Operation” in OX26 (North Bicester) has been truly laughable!!
Three things can be relied on around these ‘ere parts, regarding Gigaclear:
1) The weekly ‘Mail-Drop’ (delivered by the postman), full of super-cheap offers of hyper-speed connections for the first six-months.
2) Members of the local Facebook Groups bemoaning the fact that they ever heard of Gigaclear, let alone signed-up with them.
3) The vandalism of public roads, walls, verges (tarmac, dry-stone, brick, grass AND hedges), obstructed access to public roads, private driveways, public thoroughfares (e.g. Footpaths).