FAQs West Mersea

Our prices will be highly competitive without gimmicks. We will be publishing full details closer to the project launch.

Prices will be fixed for initial 24-month contracts with no in-contract increases.

The pricing for larger businesses wanting leased lines/private circuits, will be different and will also be published in due course.

We select the best and most cost-effective approach, depending on the property. We use underground cable, where suitable ducts exist, or telegraph poles, where these are usable. We can even deploy small cells on our private 5G network, where fixed wireless broadband is the best solution. We are not planning to conduct large-scale street or road works. 

We will not over-promise and will tell you if we are unable to install to your premises for any reason. This is likely to arise only where there are no usable ducts or poles, or where existing telephone services are directly buried under driveways with hard surfaces. However, even here there are potential solutions, particularly BYO (build your own). We will work with you, should affected customers wanting fibre be prepared to install their own duct.

There is no underlying provider; the entire network is ours. The fibre network and all the network equipment is Colchester Fibre’s. We have datacentre facilities in central Colchester and Severalls business park, with two separate, high-capacity links to the UK’s main internet exchange, Telehouse, in Docklands. Our West Mersea deployment is a joint venture with our partners, Birch Technical Services, who already have the core distribution network in the ground.

We have ample backhaul and network transit capacity and do not implement usage limits anywhere. Our core network is extremely reliable with multiple layers of resilience: a number of critical systems depend on it, such as Colchester’s city-wide CCTV system and the Council’s Helpline business. The Mersea deployment will use carrier-grade equipment provided by Adtran.

We are part of the Amphora Group of businesses, whose shareholder is Colchester City Council. We’ve taken the lead since 2017 in building future-proof communications infrastructure in Colchester. We have secured many millions of pounds of both government and private sector investment and, together with our partners, we operate a network within reach of 22,000 premises across the city centre, Wivenhoe, Shrub End and Berechurch, with a growing network across north Colchester. 

Additionally, we operate Colchester’s CCTV network of some 450 cameras, as well as the underlying infrastructure for the Helpline business with its thousands of customers.

We’ve noted that a lot of potential customers have indicated they would select a 2500Mbps – 2.5Gbps – service. A word of caution. There are still very few routers or computers with 2.5Gbps ports, and there are no WiFi devices that can communicate at anywhere near that speed.

For a few customers moving huge files (i.e. 4K video) around, a service of this speed would be a big boost but, for the vast majority, it would be overkill. Many of our residential customers are perfectly happy with 250Mbps or 500Mbps services, especially those using predominantly WiFi and not wired networks. We strongly advise customers wishing to use gigabit (1000Mbps) or faster services, use wired connections or build a wired home network.