CityFibre’s Aberdeen Fibre Optic Broadband Network Build Starts in March

Fibre optic infrastructure builder CityFibre has told today’s Transform Digital Conference that their plan to create Scotland’s first “Gigabit City“, by rolling out a new 1000Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) style network around the city of Aberdeen, is progressing and the network build should finally begin next month (March 2015).

The plan, which was officially announced in September last year (here), involves working with local ISP Internet for Business (IFB) in order to roll-out the new network to reach more than 6,000+ businesses and hundreds of public sector sites (e.g. schools, universities, libraries, hospitals and government buildings etc.).

Since then the project has established its own website (Aberdeen Core) and interestingly the ‘Where and When’ page on that site states that the Phase One deployment in the city centre was supposed to begin in January 2015, with the first services becoming available during March 2015 and final completion set for September 2015.

However today’s conference speech, which was conducted by CityFibre’s Director of Strategy & Public Affairs, Mark Collins, suggests that the operator is running a little behind schedule with the build phase set to begin in mid-March. On the other hand a small delay is nothing to worry about and hardly surprising given the size and complexity of the task at hand.

Previously CityFibre has also hinted at the prospect of using the new network to “act as the backbone” for any future deployments of a Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) style service for the city’s residents, which is perhaps not unlike the one that they’re currently deploying alongside Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Fujitsu UK in York (England). But for now the focus in Aberdeen remains firmly on businesses and the public sector, with no solid plans for tackling homes.

NOTE: INCA’s Transform Digital Conference is being held at the Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre.