Cityfibre Start Laying Gigabit Fibre Optic Cable in West Sussex UK

Within the next week Cityfibre will finally begin the deployment of a new 1Gbps+ fibre optic broadband and Ethernet network in West Sussex, which aims to connect 152 council sites in Bognor Regis, Burgess Hill, Chichester, Crawley, Haywards Heath, Horsham, Littlehampton, Shoreham and Worthing.

The project, which was only confirmed a few months ago and is predicted to have a total lifetime value of £52.7m (here), is being partly funded by a slice of the UK Government’s new £190 million Local Full Fibre Network (LFFN) challenge fund.

Cityfibre has also previously revealed that two ISPs – Exa Networks and JSPC Computer Services – have already been approved to provide both education and business connectivity services over the new Dark Fibre network.

According to the latest update, contractors working for Cityfibre are now about to begin laying the new cable in roads and footpaths around the Crawley and Chichester areas, with the rest due to follow “soon after” (exact routes are still being finalised).

A West Sussex County Council Spokesperson said:

“In time, we hope that other public services such as schools, NHS buildings and emergency services will also benefit by choosing to invest in and grow the full-fibre network.

The cable-laying work will be carried out as quickly as possible and every effort is being made to try to keep disruption to a minimum. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

The council added that “every effort” is being made to “minimise disruption and avoid excavating in roads and footpaths which have only recently been re-laid“, but the authority also warns that this will be “unavoidable in some areas.”

Deployments like this could in the future help to form the backbone of a new Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network for connecting local residential properties to Gigabit class broadband services. This is exactly what Cityfibre and Vodafone have been doing in several other UK cities, although West Sussex has some catching up to do first.