News By KCOM | 14 February 2022 - 3 min read

KCOM connects another East Riding village to full fibre broadband

First Lightstream customer for Melbourne

KCOM Retail managing director John Rooney and customer Kara Brightey

KCOM is connecting another East Riding village to a world of opportunity as its full fibre network goes live in Melbourne.

And to celebrate its award-winning network reaching 300 more rural homes and businesses KCOM has presented its first customer in the picturesque village with some goodies – as well as great connectivity and ultrafast speeds.

KCOM retail managing director John Rooney presented customer Kara Brightey with a hamper this week to welcome her to the KCOM family.

He said: “I’m delighted to welcome Kara and her family as our first customers in Melbourne and I wish them many happy years of streaming, gaming and downloading on our full fibre network.

“The interest in our Lightstream broadband in Melbourne has been phenomenal as people have jumped at the chance to upgrade to a full fibre network that’s designed to cope with the demands of our modern lives and all the good stuff we do online.

“It just shows the pent-up demand there is for quality, reliable and fast broadband across our region and why we’re investing £100m to expand our network and meet that demand in more communities like Melbourne across East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

“We’re now reaching out to communities that have been suffered from a lack of broadband infrastructure investment in the past to give them a future-proof broadband service fit for the 21^st Century. That means people can work, play, stream and download at home better than ever before.”

Mum of three Kara, 28, an Open University student, said her new Lightstream service had transformed her family’s online experience.

Before, frequent ‘drop outs’ and slow speeds meant keen gamers Kara and partner Callum, and their three children, would find it frustrating playing their favourite games such as Destiny and The Elder Scrolls online.

And, as a home with two Xboxes, two Smart TVs, one purpose built PC gaming rig, three mobile phones, a Nintendo DS and a ten-year-old TikTok fan all online at the same time, anything less than peak online performance wouldn’t do.

Now her 500Mbps Lightstream package can handle all the demands on it with no buffering, no delays, no drop-outs and an ultrafast ping that’s the envy of other gamers.

“It’s been brilliant since we switched,” says student Kara, who’s studying for a degree in criminology. “I can’t fault it at all.”

“We’re big gamers in this family and we’re online a lot playing games like Destiny and Elder Scrolls. My partner loves playing driving games Forza and Need For Speed so there’s usually at least one of us online - and the kids are always online on their Xbox or Nintendo DS.

“When I saw that KCOM had a package specifically designed for families with gamers I thought ‘that’s the one for us’ – and it’s lived up to what it promised. The downloads speeds are incredible. What would’ve taken four hours before now takes 15 minutes - and it’s actually quite frightening how quick the connection speeds are!

“It’s much better for my studies too as I can have more than one video or audio open at the same time as I’m doing my course work. It all just makes life easier and no complaints from the kids.”