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1 February 2024 |

Member Spotlight – GoFibre

Tell us more about GoFibre and how it started?

GoFibre is an independent Scottish broadband provider and network builder, focused on delivering full fibre broadband to rural areas and market towns in the East and South of Scotland. GoFibre was born in the Borders in 2017 as a wireless network provider, to bring connectivity to rural locations, and since then has attracted private equity funding to extend a future-proof fibre broadband network to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in under-served parts of Scotland.

Sam Calvert is GoFibre's Chief Revenue Officer

What are GoFibre’s missions and how do these influence your activities?

GoFibre is on a mission is to bring gigabit-capable broadband connectivity to rural locations where people have generally been left behind by the national players. We’re determined to bridge the “digital divide” by ensuring that no matter where you live you can prosper in the digital future Scotland’s future economy will be reliant on.

What, if any, barriers are you facing at the moment and what are the opportunities for growth?

Like every business there’s always barriers, though I might call them speed bumps as I see them slowing us in the short term rather than being serious issues.

The first is on our network build and deployment side, and it’s to do with a lack of standardised policies, or sometimes outdated regulations for deployment of critical infrastructure across the country. In order to meet UK and Scottish government policy ambitions, and enable our digital future, fast rollout of this infrastructure is required. We’ll always collaborate with the right local authority teams here, and we can usually find a way through in time.

The second speed bump is one of our understanding about the benefits of a full fibre broadband connection vs most people’s current connection which is often described as fibre, but uses copper telephone lines in the final leg of delivery from a cabinet on the street.

We need to work with our industry and government to help better explain why people need a future-proofed full fibre broadband connection in their home and business to cope with the applications of tomorrow, such as the connected home, or virtual reality gaming.

The opportunities for growth exist in us being able to deploy fast, reliable broadband to more people who know they are future proofing their data needs at home and at work.

How does membership of Prosper bring value to your work?

GoFibre is a purposeful business, contributing to our local communities and Scotland as a whole, so we feel that our agenda is fully aligned with Prosper’s goals. Hence becoming a member.

Being a part of Prosper has really helped access to policymakers, influencers and MSPs relevant to our government interactions, as well as connecting us with other like-minded organisations across Scotland.

As a proudly independent Scottish business, we really want to see Scotland prosper, and we’re going to play our part by delivering, and lobbying for, decent digital connectivity for all.

If our members want to know more, how do they get in touch?

We’d be delighted to talk to any Prosper members about the state of broadband in Scotland, or getting connected, especially if they are based in our network areas and need a better connection. They can get in touch with me at sam.calvert@gofibre.co.uk or on LinkedIn.