From Stratum to Gigabit, Fibrus continues transforming rural connectivity across Northern Ireland and Cumbria
Since the company was established in 2019, Fibrus has been driven by a simple belief: that connectivity should create opportunity. Now one of the UK and Ireland’s fastest-growing full fibre providers, the company is building the digital infrastructure that links homes, businesses, and communities. Dedicated to closing the digital divide, Fibrus is bringing fast, dependable broadband to rural and underserved areas across Northern Ireland and Cumbria – places too often overlooked by traditional infrastructure investment.
Trusted by government entities and private businesses, Fibrus is not only building connectivity, but helping people thrive. When Construction & Civil Engineering last sat down with Shane Haslem, Group Chief Operating Officer at Fibrus, we took a deep dive into the company’s successful delivery of Project Stratum. Through Project Stratum, Fibrus has laid 16,500km of cable, making full fibre available to more than 81,000 homes and businesses across Northern Ireland. Now, we rejoin Shane to learn more about how this success is being replicated in Fibrus’ delivery of Project Gigabit in Cumbria, alongside the company’s recent developments.
“In December 2025, Fibrus was awarded the Project Gigabit Northern Ireland contract to deliver full fibre connectivity to an additional 9000 rural premises in Northern Ireland. The £34.6 million project is part of the UK Government’s investment into Project Gigabit, designed to provide hard-to-reach communities with access to fast, reliable, gigabit-capable broadband. This delivery came down to our proven track record of delivering on time and on budget through Project Stratum, which is seen as an exemplar programme in the Building Digital UK (BDUK) framework; we’re now a trusted government partner,” Shane begins. “The good news is that we’ve already achieved our first contractual milestone in March of this year, connecting an additional 1600 premises. By the end of August, we’d delivered almost 4000 more.
“Aside from that, we’ve been busy developing some new products within our wholesale division, Hyperfast Networks. Those products are of a higher bandwidth, offering high speed, point-to-point connectivity and internet access. We’ve just launched them to our wholesale CPs in August 2026,” he enthuses.
“In addition, we continue to go from strength to strength working with one of our key partners, Eero (an Amazon company), in relation to home technology. We recently launched our new Eero 7 product, which offers the fastest, most cutting-edge Wi-Fi connectivity that you can possibly have. We’re also developing some new in-home VOIP solutions to ensure that we can manage that solution end-to-end within the customer’s home. It’s been a busy year.”
Project Stratum is already delivering a significant economic and social impact across Northern Ireland, with research indicating the programme could unlock up to £50.6 million in annual productivity gains by enabling people and businesses to work more efficiently remotely. Alongside this, Fibrus has invested more than £1 million across Northern Ireland and Cumbria, supporting the communities the company serves through funding grassroots initiatives, digital inclusion and charitable donations.
Investing in operations
Building on the blueprint established through Project Stratum, Fibrus has now invested more than £600 million in its network and operations across Northern Ireland and Cumbria, supporting the next phase of its growth. Shane shares the key focal points of that investment.
“The vast majority has been focused on the network, alongside our core and aggregation networks across Cumbria and Northern Ireland,” he reveals. “Aside from that, we’ve invested heavily in our operational capability, taking the blueprint we created through Project Stratum and applying it to our Cumbrian contracts. With that, we set up a new operational hub within our Penrith location to enable build within the Cumbria region, and that established operation is now being used to support the rollout of Project Gigabit efficiently at pace.
“Additionally, customer service is a key differentiator for us, so we’ve invested in a real omnichannel approach where customers can access Fibrus in many different ways (WhatsApp, web chat, Facebook). They can also use our brand-new portal, MyFibrus. The portal is easy to access and administer, and it means that we can help our customers to troubleshoot issues without having to go through our contact centre. Over 50,000 customers have already registered to our portal and it’s proving successful.”
Extending impact
Looking at developments ahead, Project Gigabit in Cumbria is set to be another example of Fibrus’ delivery excellence. The programme builds on the company’s experience delivering large-scale connectivity projects in rural communities, extending its impact into another underserved region.
“Project Gigabit Cumbria is a £150 million government-funded contract. Like Project Stratum, it’s about bringing full fibre to some of Cumbria’s hardest-to-reach communities,” Shane elaborates. “The contract was originally awarded in November 2022, initially covering 32,000 homes and businesses, with a further 21,000 premises added to the contract in May 2025. To date, we’ve connected over 37,000 premises. Once completed at the end of 2027, alongside our commercial plans, 99 percent of homes and businesses across the region will have access to next generation full fibre broadband. It’s one of the most challenging environments to work in with the rugged terrain, protected heritage sites, tourism-related restrictions, and so forth, but I have a real desire to promote Viberoptix, our build delivery partner. Without them, we wouldn’t have been as successful in reaching these contractual milestones.”
The success of these challenging full fibre deployments is giving Fibrus the confidence to look beyond connectivity and apply its skills and technology in new areas. After five years of building networks across demanding environments, the company is now extending into adjacent sectors such as renewables, including supporting the delivery of new EV charging infrastructure in Lisburn and Castlereagh.
“We’ve been perfecting building full fibre networks for the last five years, but we’re keen to broaden our horizons and look at adjacent areas of focus where we can apply those same skills and technologies,” Shane affirms. “One area that we’re currently working on is renewables, so we’re proud to be supporting Weev on the delivery of two new EV charging points in Lisburn and Castlereagh Council. We’re relatively early in the process, but we’re excited about what it could deliver for us.”
Meeting milestones
With major milestones already achieved across Northern Ireland and Cumbria, Fibrus is entering its next phase with clear momentum. As the company continues to deliver Project Gigabit, expand its product offering, and explore opportunities in new areas, the focus remains firmly on delivering on its promises while continuing to innovate, invest, and create opportunity through connectivity.
“The key thing for us now is to make sure that we continue delivering. With the two Project Gigabit frameworks in Northern Ireland and Cumbria, 2027 is going to be a big year for us. There are still lots of premises to deliver to, so we want to keep meeting those contractual milestones while staying within budget. We’re proud of what we’ve delivered so far and look forward to the work ahead,” Shane emphasises, concluding our conversation.
“We need to keep innovating. If we keep developing our products, technology, and customer experience, we’ll be able to make the most of the network that we’ve built.”
