Cityfibre in £1.7m Deal to Expand 1Gbps Fibre Optic Network in Aberdeen

As expected Cityfibre has today signed a new £1.7 million contract that will extend their existing fibre optic based Public Service Network (PSN) in the city of Aberdeen (Scotland) by approximately 17km, which should reach an additional 57 public sector locations.

At present the operator’s existing Aberdeen Core network, which serves local businesses and public sector sites, has already been expanded once to reach 100+ public sector sites (here). However the Scottish Government announced last month that Aberdeen would receive £2m of public funding to extend Gigabit (1Gbps) ultrafast broadband connectivity to 57 “key public buildings” (e.g. schools, health and community centres).

Today’s announcement should thus take the total route kilometres of Cityfibre’s network in the city to over 100kms and will bring the total public sector sites served in Aberdeen to 166. The operator states that overall they’ve sold a service to 419 sites in the city, which we assume must include local businesses. Cumulative ICV booked on the Aberdeen network now totals £6.1m, of which public sector business totals £3.8m.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“We are very pleased to announce today’s agreement with our long-term partner, Capita, to extend the existing CityFibre network in Aberdeen to bring the benefits of full-fibre to further core public sector sites. Capita and Aberdeen City Council continue to be great partners, and together we are very rapidly transforming this dynamic city into one of the best-connected communities in Scotland.

Consistent with our previous experience in York, Peterborough and Coventry, this agreement further illustrates the exciting incremental business opportunities within the UK public sector, and CityFibre’s unique positioning in the market leaves us very well-placed to capture this growing demand.”

The press release also hints that today’s deal is “laying the ground for a potential extensive FTTH build in future,” which could be a vague hint towards the possibility of Aberdeen becoming one of the first cities chosen by Vodafone and Cityfibre for their joint 1Gbps FTTH Broadband network for UK residential properties (here). Mind you they’ve been highlighting the possibility of expansion toward homes for years, so take this with a pinch of salt.. for now.