Urban fibre optic network developer Cityfibre has today announced that their Gigabit (1Gbps+) capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) Ethernet and broadband network will be rolled out to around 500 business parks across its footprint of 40 cities in the United Kingdom, which could benefit 22,000 SMEs.
Naturally the parks most likely to benefit will be those that already reside either in or near to Cityfibre’s existing fibre optic network. The first to benefit from this expanded deployment will be parks that exist within the operator’s “Gigabit City” project areas, such as Coventry, Bristol and Peterborough.
As usual ISPs will be able access the network via a wholesale agreement, which should enable them to offer related products to local businesses. For example, the operator said that an “entry level, ultra-fast, symmetrical service” will be available at an expected retail price of £120 +vat per month.
It’s worth pointing out that Cityfibre already covers a good number of business parks with their network and they claim that pre-registration rates of over 60% have been recorded in many of those surveyed within their footprint.
However we don’t yet have a clear roll-out plan for the new network expansion and no doubt that’s partly because Cityfibre are generally more demand-led, deploying first where local firms show the most interest.
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:
“After decades of underinvestment, Openreach’s antiquated network infrastructure is strangling our nation’s businesses. It is up to CityFibre to provide them with a viable and fit for purpose alternative, delivering a new generation of connectivity for our SMEs, the lifeblood of the UK economy.
Access to full-fibre connectivity is the only long term solution, and this is currently either unavailable or so cost-prohibitive that it has remained out of reach for most. By extending our Fibre to the Premises roll-out to business parks across our national network, we are bringing affordable, world-class connectivity to the doorsteps of thousands of businesses for the first time. This is preparing our cities for an inevitable future upgrade to Fibre to the Home.”
Matt Hancock, Minister of State for Digital and Culture, said:
“In last week’s Autumn Statement we committed to investing another £1billion in the UK’s digital infrastructure and to support the delivery of full-fibre broadband.
Fibre is the future, so today’s announcement by CityFibre is another boost to help achieve our ambitious goals. It will give small businesses across the country access to fast and reliable broadband and encourage other emerging providers to scale up so we remain a world-leading economy.”
Of course there’s no escaping the timing of today’s announcement, which surfaced only moments after Ofcom confirmed their plan for Openreach’s “legal separation” from BT. The government will be keen to show that the regulator’s new direction can work and this certainly plays into that narrative, even if it does nothing to help those still stuck on slow broadband connections in rural areas.
Cityfibre now aims is to expand their UK fibre optic network to 100 cities by 2025 (so far they’ve only got a fully confirmed plan to reach 50 cities by 2020), which they claim would equate to fibre access for “60% of the UK’s businesses and 40% of the UK’s homes” outside of London.
The above coverage claim is of course misleading because Cityfibre are using the radically hypothetical “addressable market” definition of coverage (i.e. the fibre actually isn’t in the ground outside your home yet), which is not even remotely akin to the more practically useful “premises passed” gauge (i.e. the fibre should physically pass very close to your doorstep, such as under the local pavement).
On the other hand Cityfibre’s effort to connect 500 business parks is still very significant and by reaching more businesses they’re improving the economic model (assuming the services they offer are adopted), as well as the network reach. This could make it easier to cover homes in the future, such as in the case of TalkTalk and Sky Broadband’s related move to reach 40,000 premises in York (here).
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