Team visits Kelso Cricket Club as first premises connected in the area

Borders-born broadband provider GoFibre is continuing its ’wicketly’-fast Project Gigabit full fibre rollout across the Scottish Borders and East Lothian, with well over 1,000 Project Gigabit customers now connected, bringing faster, more reliable broadband to communities across the region.

To celebrate the milestone, and to mark the first homes being connected through the build in Kelso, Build Assurance Engineer Thomas Beveridge visited Kelso Cricket Club, where GoFibre is donating funds through its social impact programme. Thomas met with Susan Holmes and Brian Campbell from the club.

Club Treasurer Susan said: “This donation will make a huge difference to our club.  It will help to buy some new equipment and also help towards our transport costs, enabling our players to take part in cricket matches throughout the Borders and the East of Scotland.  As a GoFibre customer myself, I’m ‘bowled over’ the company is able to support Kelso Cricket Club.”

One of the 1,000 new Borders customers is Chris Gilmore of Innerleithen, who is very happy with his new full fibre connection which he has had for almost five months. Kept busy as part of St Ronan’s Wells Support Group committee, Chris needs reliable broadband.

Chris said: “I’m busy every day with work for St Ronan’s Wells. With my old provider, if me and my neighbours working at home were on Teams calls at the same time or if I was watching TV at 5pm when everyone else was doing the same, it would be glitchy. The glitches have completely gone now.

“You judge companies on how they respond to things. When I contacted GoFibre with an issue, someone answered the phone immediately and ten minutes later it was all sorted out. That really is quite amazing.

“I’m really impressed with GoFibre, it’s been a great addition to the area. It’s great being able to say you’ve got proper broadband and I recommend it to everyone I speak to.”

As the Borders & East Lothian build continues to expand, more than 6,500 homes and businesses are now able to connect thanks to GoFibre’s government-backed network expansion.

With the network build now completed in Innerleithen and Oxton, work is taking place across Chirnside, Eyemouth and surrounding villages, Lauder, Denholm, Coldingham, St Abbs, and Jedburgh.

Further expansion is taking place in the Kelso and Galashiels areas with around 2,000 additional premises to be connected in each location.

Project Gigabit is the UK Government’s programme to enable hard-to-reach communities to access lightning-fast, gigabit-capable broadband.   

The Scottish Government is playing a key role in delivering Project Gigabit procurements in Scotland by administering and managing the delivery of the contracts.  

Around 20,000 premises across the Borders and East Lothian are set to benefit overall.

Founded in Duns in 2017, GoFibre is Scotland’s fastest-growing independent broadband provider. Once live, premises in the latest build areas will be able to access speeds of up to 1Gbps, enabling smoother remote working, video calls without freezing, rapid downloads, and seamless streaming on multiple devices.

Neil Conaghan, CEO of GoFibre, said: “As a Borders-born company, connecting more than 1,000 customers as part of our latest network rollout in the area is a proud moment.

“With 6,500 homes and businesses ready-to-connect, we’re seeing first-hand the real difference full fibre is making in rural communities across the region and the strong desire in communities for better digital connectivity.

“With the build in Innerleithen and Oxton complete ahead of schedule, it’s exciting to be moving into Kelso and expanding further across Galashiels. Connecting people is at the heart of what GoFibre does, whether that be through the fibre in the ground or continued investment in local communities.’

Bolstered by the new Project Gigabit customers, GoFibre has several thousand customers across the Borders and over 32,000 premises ready-to-connect to its network.

Alongside the broadband rollout, GoFibre is invests in communities through social impact. As well as Kelso Cricket Club, recent initiatives include investment in Melrose 7s youth teams and Coldingham Brave Bayers, a wild swimming group raising money for charity.