CityFibre Must Improve How it Handles Full to Capacity UK FTTP Areas
A small number of customers trying to order a broadband package via ISPs on CityFibre’s new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network are finding, in certain locations, that the wholesale operator has been rejecting orders where their network is “at capacity“. This is despite continuing to list the same addresses as being available on their website.
First things first. All broadband networks can run into issues of capacity, such as those that might occur when there aren’t enough spare ports currently available for new connections on a specific street or where the local supply of data capacity (backhaul etc.) has become oversubscribed.
Good capacity management usually helps to avoid most of this. But even the best operators can sometimes run into the odd issue, and it’s how you deal with those that really matters. For example, some operators will simply block the ability to place new orders for locations in this boat or may instead adopt a ‘Waiting List‘ strategy, where customers are placed into a queue until such time as the issue is resolved. Good communication is also key.
Advertisement
In the case of the CityFibre complaints we’ve seen, a few customers have reported to ISPreview that their orders were simply rejected – often without a clear explanation (i.e. they weren’t initially told it was due to a capacity issue or when the problem would be resolved). But after a bit of nudging by those involved, it was later confirmed to be a capacity issue (although they didn’t specify what kind).
Just to confuse matters further, related customers found that CityFibre’s website (and sometimes supporting ISPs) were continuing to list their addresses as being available to order. Suffice to say that customers were left with a confusing picture and no clear indication of when the issue would actually be resolved, let alone how they’d be able to tell without going through the whole order process again.
A CityFibre Spokesperson told ISPreview:
“We continuously manage and increase capacity to stay ahead of demand but we are aware of a very small number of cases where we’ve had to decline an individual order. We would like to apologise to anyone affected and assure customers that our network capacity is being continuously extended to ensure everyone has the opportunity to access it.
We are enhancing our availability tracker to ensure it takes into account such cases, as well as working closely with our ISP partners to further improve the customer experience.”
Sadly, CityFibre didn’t provide any indication of precisely when their availability tracker would be enhanced or how, but we welcome that they’ve recognised the need for improvements and were quick to respond when the matter was raised. In most of these cases the capacity issue itself does not, we believe, appear to have been related to port availability, which suggests a different cause.
CityFibre currently aspires to cover up to 8 million UK premises with their new FTTP network (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and c.£800m of BDUK subsidy) – across over 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK). But it remains unclear precisely when this will be achieved. The original goal was for the end of 2025, although their current build + M&A plan may get them up to c.6m (if it all goes well).
Advertisement
In any case, as networks grow, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see a rise in capacity related complaints, although it should be stressed that such issues are usually quite uncommon and typically only impact a tiny percentage of an operator’s national network at any one time.
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.
« FullFibre Ltd Launch 2.3Gbps Broadband Plans on its UK ISP Network
Not a good look when you’re trying to get take up on your network and you then turn customers away. City AM had quite a good article on the CityFibre and the altnets following the Sky announcement here:-
https://www.cityam.com/it-can-be-spaghetti-out-there-can-cityfibre-take-on-bt/
It feels like a big headline with so little stated evidence.
Clearly things aren’t perfect, but without stats on how many customers are impacted, and how many have avoided this situation by effective network expansion, one can’t really jump to this conclusion.
There’s also potentially the issue of network coverage accuracy…that is the address is assumed to be ready for service but, on further inspection after order, more work is required. I can imagine the build teams are rather busy (and potentially in different parts of the country) so this might take longer than hoped.
CityFibre needs to improve every aspect of how the handle anything. They seem like a company that has grown too quickly before they’ve formed a solid foundation of good communication, effective processes and more.
For two years they sent me leaflets to inform me that I could connect to their network. For those two years I repeatedly told them they had not connected this MDU and they simply hadn’t listened – that’s when they were bothered to reply. Their support is even worse than Virgin Media and that’s saying something. In those 2 years I tested their process by signing up to various ISPs. CityFibte would then cancel the orders once they realized this MDU wasn’t connected and they’d send another leaflet only 1-2 weeks later – rinse and repeat.
Now, 2 years later, they’ve finally had a lightbulb moment and have wired the complex.
What a clown show of a company.
Have to agree with last comment.
My address went from building to no plan, same day they fitted hardwire to the post outside my house. Neighbouring streets all still on build stage, CS were clueless.
Cityfibre needs to get it’s act together:in Milton Keynes it has listed talktalk as live on its network for 2 years despite talktalk not having connected anyone in the entire city. Talktalk say they are not available via cityfibre there but cityfibre say they are. Thus an infinite loop of madness.
Sadly they also show ISPs in their list as available – which are not providing their services at your address once you click on their link. Would love to consider CF based talk talk – but it seems they only offer their services via OR so far. The only ISP that can’t connect us via CF.
I won’t hold my breath for an XGSPON upgrade then 🙁
An ISP, who I won’t name, once said they thought BT was bad to communicate with but Cityfibre are next level.
It seems accross the whole business they need to improve processes and communication. It would be a shame if they didn’t bother and went down hill, I’ve been happy with the peerformance so far but with BT about to offer symmetrical I could switch back to them if Cityfibre went to pot.
Process and operational improvement unfortunately need a lot of investment across the piece. And once data quality is poorer than it should be it is a tricky issue to resolve.
I know Greg Mesch was saying that the regulatory push for increased competition was great, and has driven massive investment. But a few must be regretting their decisions now.
Provides some massive challenges for the industry though, in my opinion.
City fibre has already been rolling out XGSPON since 2023, the issue many internet providers are slow to update bandwidth increases, e.g Vodafone only started listed my area as 1.8 Gbit, but on TOOB I have been able to get 2.2 Gbit for 8 months. However when I type my neighbours house in, they’re only able.to get 900 Mbit on Vodafone and they live next door. I believe this is a capacity issue. There was hot debates about them going to 1:128 split other 1:32 which no doubt will cause massive issues with everyone wanting max speed.
No bandwidth issues on CityFibre at all on the XGSPON.
Split ratio on XGSPON is 1:64 on CityFibre. Unsure what these hot debates were but they ended at 1:64. This is fine unless both take up and usage are incredibly high. Neighbour either on a different port or a database issue.
I don’t think they can remain uncontactable except via ISPs for much longer – people will have queries about builds or equipment locations that are unrelated to an ISP and an ISP would have no incentive to spend their time on. Currently you almost need to make a nuisance of yourself to get answers out of CityFibre.
It all makes one wonder how the fibre infrastructure will manage when the likes of BBC, SKY, ITV etc finally push us all onto streaming.
I think you might be misunderstanding what is meant by “capacity”. In some areas CityFibre have no physical ports available for new customers to connect to (parts of) their network. I don’t believe there are significant problems where existing customers can’t use the speed that they’re paying for.
It took city fibre 10 appointments, 8 if which were cancelled the night before, and 3 months to install fibre to my home. Every time they cancelled I was assured that it would be fixed next time. Total shambles. I still don’t believe that they know why the process was not working..
Their cables have been outside my address since last June, and I’m still waiting for a live service!
They paused when my area was almost complete in September last year, since then. Nothing.
Cables on poles over 12 months ago but still can’t order… finish off what you started first.
Not unusual for the altnets. Swish (All Points) took well over 12 months between starting the build and going live where I am.
I pre ordered with BeFibre over two years ago. They stopped installing at the end of my road about a year ago, when they fell out with Kier. I’ve given up waiting and got a Starlink dish. More expensive but I get 150 to 300 MBs.
Next time you talk to them can you ask them what is going on with the XGS-PON rollout?
CityFibre do indeed have huge communication issues, especially related to its build and MDU procedures. To get my install done, I do think I was really fortunate that I managed to find someone high up in the company who decided to assist directly as well as providing direct contact details. Once that person got involved everything was great I got to speak to various people who were working on the build directly over the phone to get things resolved. But these lines of communication are highly unusual, and instead they seem to be over emphasising that they only deal with partner ISPs, and hence the consumer is in the chinese whispers game. In terms of rollout progress its terrible, they offer no estimated dates, a vague “coming soon” for my area translated to 5 months, they now will mark MDU properties as available so they can order, but then the communication to said customer is almost non existent, not helped that it goes through the ISP they ordered from. So far on the XGS-PON rollout there has been no public communication of substance since the original announcement back in 2023. The apparent progress seems to be the original cities they enabled, and its now standard on current builds, but there has not been a single location that was GPON only after the cities announcement moved to XGS-PON indicating no existing upgrade work. Instead just a few statements saying its planned, they working with ISPs on it. They do need to up their game and be somewhat more direct with consumers, but the barrier is likely that partner ISPs will want everything going through them.
We’ve got what look like massive capacity related issues in the Leeds and surrounding area: https://www.reddit.com/r/CityFibre/comments/1fnxvtj/high_latency_on_new_vodafone_service/