JT says fibre broadband network is 70% completed

Tuesday 03 January 2017

JT says it has now completed 70% of the planned connections to the Island's fibre-optic broadband network.

The telecoms firm says it listed around 34,000 properties to be connected when the project began in May 2012, and by the end of 2016, it had swapped just over 24,000 homes and businesses to fibre broadband.

The project has seen the Island rise to 3^rd place in the world in terms of the percentage of broadband customers directly connected to the internet with fibre-optic cabling. 

Fibre broadband provides guaranteed data speeds for customers, as well as enabling quicker, and higher capacity, connections to the internet.

JT’s Director of Corporate Affairs Daragh McDermott, commented:

“We are really proud of the Gigabit team for what they have achieved in 2016. It’s been our best year yet in terms of the number of properties connected to fibre, and sets us up really well for 2017.

“We fully appreciate that there are Islanders waiting for their fibre connection, and we would like to reassure them that we are progressing as quickly as we can. If anyone wants to find out when they will be connected, we would ask them to check our website, where estimated connection dates are published.

“In effect we are replacing the Island’s entire broadband network, and are planning to do it more quickly than has been done anywhere else in the world - such a large and complex civil infrastructure project takes time, but once it is done, it will serve the Island well for decades to come."

In the last four-and-a-half years, the actual number of broadband connections in Jersey has risen by about 10%, or 3,000, and so JT expects to have connected over 37,000 properties by final completion.