Fastest broadband in east of England arriving at ‘light speed’ in Skegness

Mr Warman joined Lightspeed Broadband engineers near the Clock Tower today to see how they are laying the high-capacity fibre optic network and installing underground boxes - instead of the usual green street cabinets - to minimise the impact on the local environment.

The Lincolnshire-based regional internet service provider has been building its network in ten towns across the East of England since it mobilised 100 engineers in April this year.

This will bring the region’s fastest, most reliable internet available directly to thousands of homes and businesses.

Building work intentionally started in Skegness in Autumn this year to avoid the busy summer period.

Residents in Skegness will be able to connect to the full fibre, 1 Gigabit per second (1000 Mbps) internet service from LightSpeed from Spring next year.

The future of broadband; full fibre means the connection to the internet uses fibre optic for the whole of the route from the exchange into homes. It’s 23 times faster and five times more reliable than the average broadband currently available in the town.

Thousands of homes and businesses across the towns including Boston, Spalding, Stamford, Bourne, Holbeach, King’s Lynn, Long Sutton, Market Deeping and Sleaford will be able to connect to the network in the coming months.

Residents will be able experience super smooth gigabit capable download and upload speeds for simultaneous professional home working, streaming online entertainment, high speed gaming, and video calling, with no battling over bandwidth, no buffering, no lag and no dropouts experienced with standard fibre broadband.

The company has created a new headquarters in Spalding, where its network management and customer service teams are based, creating thirty local jobs and from where it can provide a first-class locally based service to its customers.

Steve Haines, CEO of LightSpeed Broadband commented: “It was great to meet Matt Warman MP in Skegness recently and to celebrate the progress of our full fibre network build in the town and across the region and discuss the importance of fibre directly into your home or premises is to the communities and businesses in Skegness and Boston.

"With more of us using the internet for remote working, streaming online entertainment and gaming, while using multiple devices at once, gigabit broadband is going to be the future of the UK economy and the need for full fibre infrastructure will only become more vital.

"As a Lincolnshire-based business, our aim is to become the East of England’s leading broadband provider and to focus investment in towns, like Skegness, in the region where there has been little infrastructure built by other operators.

"Our network build is progressing at ‘light speed’ as we use existing underground ducts and telegraph poles to reduce disruption and minimise impact on the local area and the environment. We are also working at night to speed up the process so as many customers as possible can connect to our service and benefit from gigabit speeds as quickly as possible.”

Matt Warman, MP for Boston and Skegness who was Minister for Digital and Broadband when the project started, said: “The Covid pandemic has brought home to all of us the importance of high speed, reliable broadband.

"From children accessing school work online to families connecting with each other over the internet, it has never been more important that broadband is available to all residents of the UK.

"That’s why I’m pleased to see regional operators like LightSpeed Broadband offering choice in the market to ensure that whether you’re in Boston or Skegness, you can access the internet faster and more reliably than ever.”

For further information and to register interest visit www.lightspeed.co.uk