TalkTalk aims to provide FTTP for 3 million premises

Although there has been radio silence over the last year, TalkTalk - UK’s budget ISP - has announced it will be deploying a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) which aims to cover three million premises.

Its vision to be “at the heart of Britain’s full-fibre future” remains unchanged.

FTTP has been on the rise in the recent months with network providers stepping up plans to complete a number of rollouts.

A spokesperson for TalkTalk said: “TalkTalk plans to be at the heart of Britain’s full-fibre future. As the leading value-for-money provider, we want to ensure all our customers can access it at affordable prices.

“We’ve outlined our commitment to roll-out full-fibre to three million homes via a new infrastructure company, and we have already appointed a new CEO and Chairman. We’ll provide further updates shortly.”

The initial plan was announced on 8 February of this year and consisted of a £1.5 billion investment through the opening of a new company with the name Infraco. A combined venture, 20 per cent of the company would be owned by TalkTalk and 80 per cent by Infracapital, the infrastructure department of M&G Prudential.

The rollout was to target mid-sized towns and cities, and at the time was estimated to take three to five years to complete.

The many months of silence did leave uncertainty about the progress of the project, especially since there was talk of the network provider engaging in passive infrastructure sharing with Virgin Media.

After the appointment of new bosses, TalkTalk has now confirmed that the rollout will continue and the target for FTTP remains 3 million premises.

The prime beneficiaries of the rollout and a timeframe for the deployment have not yet been announced.

TalkTalk has previously undertaken full fibre trials with Sky and CityFibre in York for 14,000 homes and had plans to increase to a total of 54,000.