CityFibre Start Halifax FTTP Broadband Build with New Contractor
After a long delay due to the failure of their previous local contractor, CityFibre has today announced the start (or restart) of their £23m project to deploy a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across the large West Yorkshire (England) town of Halifax.
The local deployment – due to cover “nearly every home and business” in the town – was first announced all the way back in August 2021 (here), with the plan being that civil engineering firm NMCN would begin the construction phase in January 2022. But this suffered a significant delay after the operator’s chosen contractor fell into administration (here) and was later gobbled up by Svella (Svella Connect).
The good news today is that CityFibre has now appointed a new contractor – Network Plus – to deliver its network rollout in Halifax, which is expected to spark the creation of more than 40 local jobs. Work is already underway around the Queens Road area of the town, with completion being anticipated for 2024.
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As usual, this rollout forms part of the operator’s wider £4.9bn investment project, which has so far enabled their full fibre network to cover 1.7 million UK premises – with 1.5m ‘Ready For Service‘ via a supporting ISP (here). The aim is to cover up to 8 million premises – across around 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here), but they also plan to reach into rural areas via Project Gigabit (here).
The new network is also expected, once complete, to cover 800,000 UK businesses, 400,000 public sector sites and 250,000 5G access points.
Steve Moore, CityFibre’s Area Manager for Halifax, said:
“Our investment is set to transform the digital capabilities of residents and businesses in Halifax and we’re delighted to announce our partnership with Network Plus as the first phase of the project commences. We cannot wait for residents and businesses to access our network and see what is possible with digital connectivity that propels you forward rather than holds you back.
As well as future-proofing Halifax’s digital infrastructure and capabilities, this project is providing a welcome boost to the jobs market. It’s created 40 new roles, with local talent needed to help us carry out this important project.”
In terms of gigabit-capable competition in the town, Virgin Media (VMO2) already covers the vast majority of premises. But outside that, Openreach and – to a much lesser extent – Hyperoptic only have the smallest pockets of full fibre coverage, which provides CityFibre with a good opportunity to steal away market share from rivals.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Yorkshire, it’s a state of mind.
Oh my God, typical talk the talk, from the headline picture you can tell the depth does not reach CityFibre specification. It is shallow, not sanded underneath. ( left hand side on top of an OR duct no sharp sand separation, Cf specification is 295mm for a twin feeder with 25mm from each side wall and 25mm between the two ducts.
Another square peg in round hole who cannot read a specification and make a contractor build to specification. Let’s audit them and make sure they have eyewash!!!
Yeah it’s pretty bad. Regardless of CityFibre specification that doesn’t have the 250mm cover mandated under the HAUC specifications.
Be a shame if the local authority did a core drill to 250mm depth.
That’s not even the straws either which is the scarier part for me.
You wont get anything good out of network Plus.
Cityfibre have their hands tied by these contractors.
CF are the best installed plant in my experience and Virgin the worst with directly buried tubes at around 75mm being the norm. It is the Wild West out there at the moment
https://www.flickr.com/photos/curlycom/50342683387/
Wonder if the financial investors know how badly their money is being spent?
If it was my pension fund I would not be happy.
It’s a privately owned company. The investors will have access to way more information than we, the public, do.
If the owners and investors aren’t happy the leadership can be changed pretty rapidly.
I welcome this as I am from Halifax and their is no competition for fiber other than Virginmedia.
So when we do a comparison Halifax only shows top speeds of around 20 to 30 meg download from bt, talk talk, sky etc until city fibre does this work which will open to faster speeds and more suppliers and offer faster internet speeds and not stuck with virginmedia
End of July and our NP have completed the top section of our street in Sowerby Bridge, so the trunking has been installed, ready for the fibre team to come along and connect to the premises. The team did a cracking job. Polite and friendly and 2 sugars in the tea 🙂
Looking forward to gigabit speeds. Not sure when the Fibre Team from City Fibre will do the last bit, but I have waiting for decades for this kind of infrastructure, a little longer is fine by me.