£15.7m CityFibre Deal Extends Glasgow Gigabit Fibre Network to 506 Council Sites

Dark fibre builder Cityfibre has signed a new 19 year framework agreement with UK ISP Commsworld for £15.7m, which is their “largest public sector award to date” and will extend the existing Gigabit capable fibre optic (FTTP) network in Glasgow (Scotland) to 506 city council owned sites.

Cityfibre’s rollout in the centre of Glasgow, which connects into an existing fibre network, began deploying back in November 2016 and they’ve spent much of 2017 steadily expanding its reach. HighNet was one of the original ISP partners for this network, which aimed to be completed by the end of 2017, but that was primarily for business connectivity (i.e. covering about 7,000 businesses but possibly rising to 17,000 in the future).

By comparison the new deal appears to require the construction of an additional 243km of new core network infrastructure in order to connect all 506 sites across the Glasgow City Council estate, along with 15 BT exchange-to-exchange links. This will apparently supplement the 50km of existing core metro infrastructure in the city centre, which was built to satisfy existing contracts with HighNet, Capita and Commsworld in the enterprise and public sector markets.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“This award demonstrates the potential for forward-thinking local authorities to attract the private investment in their digital infrastructure that is so critical to their future success.

The city’s full-fibre spine will be built with the future in mind, capable of supporting 5G mobile networks and laying the ground-work for an inevitable roll-out of fibre to every home and business in the city.

Following on the heels of our recent contract win in Aberdeen, today’s agreement marks a strong end to a very eventful year for CityFibre and again underlines the ongoing robust demand from the public sector for world-class digital infrastructure to enhance economic development and competitiveness.

This will be the largest public-sector project in our history and makes us the leading digital infrastructure provider to the public sector in Scotland. We look forward to working with our partners, Commsworld and CGI, to usher in a full-fibre future to even more Scottish cities.”

The initial 7-year term is said to carry a minimum initial contract value (ICV) of £6.4m, with options to extend to a maximum of 19 years. Unfortunately we aren’t told how long the new deployment will take to complete or how many sites and businesses have already joined their existing network in the city.

The expansion could also help to make Glasgow another option for Cityfibre’s partnership with Vodafone, which is currently planning for a major roll-out of 1Gbps capable FTTH broadband connectivity to several million UK homes (here).