Fibre broadband: First Guernsey customers connected

Fibre broadband has been installed into the first Guernsey properties

The first users have been connected to Guernsey's new fibre broadband network as part of the pilot stage of a five-year rollout plan, project leaders say.

Guernsey Fibre is the £37m programme to get high-speed broadband into every property in the island.

Guernsey States said it had committed £12.5m to the project, run by telecommunications firm Sure.

Those with the trial broadband installed said they had noticed immediate improvements.

Royston and Caroline Gallie were the first customers to be connected to the new fibre network.

Royston and Caroline Gallie said the new connection allowed them to work from home and stream video at the same time

Mr Gallie said the family had noticed the immediate improvement to their internet speed since the fibre was installed.

He said: "My daughter's reaction said it all: she came running down the stairs to tell us she had downloaded the new Bond film in one minute and 12 seconds, compared to the 40 minutes it would have taken on our old connection.

"Our daughter used to get frustrated working from home in lockdown when all of us were on the internet at once.

"Now all four of us can be online at the same time to stream TV, download things and work from home."

Sure installation engineer Tom Piprell said: "The process for Mr and Mrs Gallie went very well and we're so pleased that they're happy with their new faster internet speeds."

Getting connected to Guernsey Fibre needed engineers to install new equipment, project bosses said, including a small box on the outside of a customer's property, enabling the external fibre to connect to the network point inside the home.

The project aimed to connect all 30,000 properties in Guernsey by the end of 2026, managers said.

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