By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
Truespeed is using full-fibre networks and the power of quality whole-home mesh Wi-Fi to challenge broadband incumbents in the South West of England. Truespeed is one of a new ‘altnet’ breed of home broadband providers in the UK successfully taking on established markets in areas where national giants – such as BT OpenReach – have been slow to deploy fibre. Linksys is a key component of Truespeed’s success, says CEO James Lowther.
Truespeed is using full fibre and whole-home mesh Wi-Fi from Linksys to deliver what subscribers in the Chew Valley of England and surrounds have been waiting far too long for: Great home broadband services. The area – located roughly between the cities of Bristol and Bath in the South West of England – has been largely neglected by incumbents, leaving the market open for alternative broadband providers.
Truespeed CEO James Lowther says state-of-the-art mesh Wi-Fi delivers a boost in NPS scores, reduction in customer service calls, and is overall an excellent match to Truespeed’s ‘ultra-fast’ fibre-based services. “We rely heavily on mesh Wi-Fi for the delivery of reliable, whole-home connectivity especially because houses in the area are built with thick stone walls. Add to this all the right features and controls, and this mesh solution really satisfies the needs of our customers,” says James Lowther.
He also says the new mesh solutions have sped up deployment. “Nearly all our services are delivered to properties that have not had fibre broadband before, which means we install everything, including the mesh Wi-Fi. In this case Linksys mesh has helped us drive down on-site installation time,” says James Lowther.
Truespeed currently serves more than 14,000 customers and its network has passed more than 60,000 properties across the South West including in the areas of Chew Valley, Bath, and North Bristol. Truespeed’s goal is to pass 500,000 homes by 2025, the company says. Linksys Velop Wi-Fi routers and mesh extenders are offered as part of the company’s 300 Mbps, 600 Mbps, and 900 Mbps service packages priced at £29, £32, and £49, respectively.
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The key to successful mesh Wi-Fi for ISPs
Linksys says the company began shipping mesh systems to ‘altnet’ providers in the UK by the hundreds per month a few years ago. This number has now grown to tens of thousands of Linksys Velop mesh systems shipped per month. The reason – says Bukhtar Taggar, European Sales Director for Linksys – is reliable performance, durable hardware build, attractive designs from a well-known (and 35-years-old) brand.
“Our ISP clients will test our products against other mesh solutions and we typically come out on top for both performance and stability. We believe this has to do with the fact that Linksys was one of the first companies to release mesh Wi-Fi systems back in 2017 and that we’ve continued to improve on our systems and in particular our ‘Intelligent Mesh’ software since then,” Bukhtar Taggar says.
He also says that Linksys hardware is durable because many older installed units are still going strong with functionality unaffected after five years of operation. Linksys Velop solutions for ISPs are typically co-branded such that both the Linksys brand and the ISP’s brand and logo are depicted on the hardware units.
Linksys says their Wi-Fi management analytics software can be incorporated onto mesh solutions as an additional feature for optimizing Wi-Fi performance in real-time. “There is no question that our systems have been instrumental in keeping for example Truespeed’s customers loyal. That’s enormously valuable to ISPs because getting a subscriber back can cost hundreds of pounds. It may not even always be possible if they’ve had a really poor Wi-Fi experience,” he says.
For more about Linksys and Truespeed meet both Bhuktar Taggar and James Lowther at Wi-Fi World Congress UK/Europe in Brighton this May 22-24.
/Claus.
