First customer in Flackwell Heath is connected to Swish
Charles Fraser-Sampson and his family are the first residents in Flackwell Heath to connect to the UK’s Fastest Broadband as Swish Fibre break new ground with their future-proofed 10,000Mbps capable Full Fibre network.
Swish are leading the Full Fibre competition by some way in terms of bandwidth, having recorded unmatchable UK download speeds at over 9.5Gbps*, while the broadband provider maintains an Excellent rating on Trust Pilot. Customers can enjoy a premium service which includes complete Wi-Fi coverage, loyalty schemes, tonnes of added extras, and tailored packages for residential, homeworkers and business customers. Furthermore, Swish continue to set themselves apart from the pack as the only brand to offer zero contract deals among a range of other exclusive offers.
The Fraser-Sampsons who live on Sedgemoor Road, were struggling to keep their home and family connected on their old part-fibre service and Charles explains the immediate impact of their switch to Swish and Full Fibre.
Charles Fraser-Sampson said “Firstly I have to say the customer service throughout has been top-notch. It was so refreshing to speak to a human being and the Swish team kept me updated on the whole process from beginning until end. The speeds have been unbelievable since taking the plunge and it’s already made such a massive difference. With our old connection, we mainly felt the negative effects in the evenings with so many people on the street using up bandwidth at the same time. We’d constantly have dropouts on the network, even when we were trying to use just a few devices at once. For example, trying to watch Netflix while my wife was using the Wi-Fi on the phone and my son was on his iPad, was a nightmare, and we’d always get buffering screens. With Swish you don’t get any delays at all and everything has been seamless”
The UK Government’s Building Digital UK team launched their Project Gigabit Initiative last year which seeks to extend 1Gbps capable networks to reach at least 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025 and then universal coverage by around 2030, however the country still languishes below 50th place in the world broadband speed rankings.
Internet Service Providers like Swish are spearheading the revolution, but widespread consumer confusion remains between old part-fibre and state-of-the art Full Fibre connections, while there is often unrest in the community due to misunderstandings around the vital building and civils work that is regularly needed to drive the transition.
As Swish continue with the initial roll out of their network across the South of England, they continue to stand up for consumer choice, pledging to educate the nation on the difference between 100% Fibre-optic Full Fibre (FTTP – Fibre-to-the-premises) and part-fibre or Fake Fibre (FTTC – Fibre-to-the-cabinet) networks which include speed-sapping copper cable across the crucial last leg of the journey from the cabinet into the home. This is important because there’s a huge difference in speed, performance and reliability between the two.
Part-fibre networks can’t provide download speeds much above 80 Mbps and upload speeds of 20 Mbps whereas Full Fibre has the capability to offer speeds up to 100 times faster at Swish’s record breaking 10,000Mbps today and potentially even faster download and upload speeds in the future.
Swish Fibre co-founder Alistair Goulden comments “The difference between part-fibre or ‘Fake Fibre’ services and Full Fibre connections are night and day. If you have a part-fibre connection and you’re working from home, or the family have multiple devices connected, the chances are you would have experienced a slowdown in speeds and that’s because they’ll be many users on the network at the same time. Full Fibre cuts out the congestion and connects you directly to the internet on your own line”
Alistair continued “We completely understand that there is going to be unrest in the community when it comes to civils work and digging streets and we are working hard to get the message out there that there will be a certain amount of short term pain for long term gain. In order to provide a number of our properties with access to Full Fibre, civils work must be carried out to lay new ducting where our 100% fibre-optic cables can be pulled through. This is because the majority of the existing ducting in many of the areas we operate in, house outdated copper telecoms cables, that are directly buried in the ground with no access”
“We pride ourselves on our customer care and we know how vital it is that we clearly explain what we are doing, why we are doing it and how long any inconvenience is expected to last, while importantly helping our communities to understand the long-term benefits of Full Fibre Broadband. Full Fibre is an enabler and it’s an honour for all at Swish to continue to drive both social and economic growth in towns that have been previously thought to be left behind”
Swish are now live in 11 of the initial 33 towns listed from their launch plans including Marlow, Gerrards Cross, Princes Risborough, Beaconsfield, Bourne End, Haslemere, Farnham, Godalming, Thame, Chinnor and now Flackwell Heath, with Great Missenden and Ascot customers set to be connected in the coming weeks.
Build continues in Sunningdale, Bagshot, Hazlemere & Penn, Wooburn Green and Alton with a further 20+ towns due to benefit from the service in 2022.