Rural full fibre broadband provider Gigaclear has started work to connect 9,500 homes and businesses in Oxfordshire to ultrafast full fibre broadband under Project Gigabit.

As the UK’s leading rural altnet provider, Gigaclear is proud to be delivering this vital infrastructure in its home county, ensuring hard-to-reach communities gain access to fast, reliable gigabit-capable broadband.

With two contracts totalling £25.4m in government funding, Gigaclear's network expansion will see over 250km of new duct installed, with 50% of the build leveraging existing infrastructure.

Gigaclear’s CEO Nathan Rundle said: “Here at Gigaclear we’ve made it our mission to bring full fibre ultrafast broadband to Britain’s rural communities, and this is exactly what Project Gigabit has been set up to achieve.

“We have already made a significant investment in building our network in Oxfordshire and as a local business based in Abingdon, it is really important to us that we continue to improve digital inclusion in the county, and to bring our home-grown full fibre broadband to local residents.”

Telecoms Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “There is so much our modern digital world has to offer – from online healthcare to keeping in touch with friends and family – but a lack of fast and reliable broadband has excluded some communities in Oxfordshire from so many of these benefits.

“It is great to see that, as part of this Government’s Plan for Change, we are helping to plug some of the digital gaps in North and South Oxfordshire and getting one step closer to realising our ambition to achieve full gigabit coverage by 2030.”