CityFibre Holdings (Fibrecity), which now holds the contract for deploying a 100Mbps+ Fibre-to-the-Home ( FTTH ) fibre optic broadband ISP network in the English south coast city of Bournemouth, has told Bournemouth Borough Council that work on the development will resume imminently and 20,000 NEW homes will be connected before the end of 2011.

The i3 Group sold off its UK subsidiaries (Fibrecity, H2O Networks, Opencity Media and Wireless Network Systems) to CityFibre Holdings UK, which is led by i3's own former President and COO (Greg Mesch), in January 2011 (here). This followed a Series Fraud Office (SFO) investigation of the original projects financiers (here). Meanwhile the work in Bournemouth has been left unfinished and a number of services were recently suspended (here).

Officially CityFibre claims to have already connected 10,000 homes in the city to its fibre optic broadband network, with a further 12,500 passed (i.e. able to receive the service if they want). However, many continue to question the figures and it's unclear how many ACTIVE customers actually remain; especially after the recent service suspension.

Greg Mesch has now told the local Bournemouth Echo newspaper that his new team has "far greater experience" at delivering such services than the old one. Apparently the new long-term plan is to reach 65,000 to 70,000 homes over the next 12 to 18 months. Meanwhile similar work in the Scottish city of Dundee remains on indefinite hold.

CityFibre certainly has a difficult uphill struggle, not least with having to overcome a worrying loss of confidence among local residents and potential customers. Mr Mesch does at least claim that Bournemouth council is now being "very supportive" of the new plans. The operator has also managed to raise over £880m for installing similar networks in Ireland, Holland, Belgium and Germany. The proof is in the pudding.