CityFibre to Deploy Gigabit Fibre Optic Network to Homes in Peterborough UK

CityFibre has announced that it will invest up to £30 million in order to roll-out an independent ultrafast metro fibre optic broadband and telecoms network around the city of Peterborough in the East of England. The project follows similar deployments in both York and Bournemouth.

The new network, which CityFibre claims could deliver “substantial bandwidth capacity, an ultrafast user experience and significant cost and service advantages“, will initially be made available to local businesses, carriers, ISPs (e.g. Gigler) and the public sector. Local homes and businesses can also expect to get access to service speeds of up to 1Gbps (Gigabit per second) via supporting ISPs (note: the city is home to more than 214,000 people).

CityFibre is currently considering investment in a number of other cities and was attracted to Peterborough by its “high growth business, residential and public sector markets as well as its progressive, ambitious local authority“. It’s anticipated that the new network will require the installation of over 90km of fibre optic cable, which should pass 80% of the city’s businesses and around 60,000 homes.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“Cities, like Peterborough, should have the opportunity to benefit from widespread deployment of fibre infrastructure. This will enable businesses and homes in the city to fully maximise the power of cloud computing, ultrafast broadband, or even glitch-free video conferencing on Google Hangouts or Skype.

The first stage of our deployment will include the major commercial districts of the city, covering over 4,000 businesses, all of whom will benefit from gigabit level speeds and services. The second phase will bring that same level of speed to up to 60,000 homes, making Peterborough truly a Gigabit city. We welcome Peterborough to the Gigabit city club.”

Marco Cereste, Leader of Peterborough City Council, said:

“Peterborough will soon have one of the fastest networks available in the UK and will be on its way to becoming a Gigabit City, which is another boost to the city’s growth agenda. We therefore welcome the proposed CityFibre investment in the city. Peterborough’s economy is rapidly growing and the CityFibre investment will allow businesses of all sizes to utilise the Internet for growth, as well as bringing new business to Peterborough, inspire new start-ups, support homeworkers and create jobs.”

A precise timetable for the project is not yet clear but it could face some of the same competition problems as those that have made life difficult in Bournemouth. According to Ofcom, BT and Virgin Media’s respective hybrid-fibre based superfast broadband networks are already available to 86% of local premises and have a strong take-up rate of 30.6% (some of this is most likely down to Virgin’s double-speed upgrade).

Admittedly such services are often significantly slower than the one CityFibre will deploy, although it can still be very difficult to take a slice out of an existing market where the current operators have established support, low prices and remain well advertised via a variety of ISPs. Never the less we do hope that CityFibre can push beyond this and make a success of the platform in residential as well as public and business sectors.