The company aims to provide ultrafast connectivity to rural areas with a community project-based approach, with over 80 of its ‘Community Champions’ in local areas working collaboratively with an in-house team. Through the government Rural Gigabit Connectivity Voucher (RGCV) Scheme, the company is involved with helping rural home and businesses to receive a broadband service on par with towns and cities.
During 2020, the ISP said it significantly increased its network footprint allowing for a continued growth with a year-on-year increase in the number of customers it connected by 27 per cent. It also announced a 59 per cent increase in the number of rural communities connected to full fibre broadband from the previous year, with 624km of fibre installed in the ground across Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Hampshire.
“Our focus is to expand our fantastic service to even more of the countryside,” said Hector Gibson Fleming, the company’s managing director (pictured). “We want to significantly grow our customer base and continually improve our service experience for existing customers.
“We have everything in place to achieve this - robust systems, a strong management structure and the specialist skills that contributed to a successful 12 months. We will continue to recruit more people over the coming year.”
Within the last year, Wessex Internet extended its reach of non-residential connections to include schools, churches, farms, businesses, village halls and sports clubs. The company also won a three-year contract to bring full-fibre broadband to some of the most rural areas in South Somerset following a successful bid to the government subsidised Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) scheme.
“The whole nation is currently undergoing a revolutionary change in approach to its working patterns, education, healthcare, home life and leisure activity,” Fleming continued. “People and businesses in rural areas have the same rights to world class connectivity to support this as those in towns and cities.”