Cambridge, Leeds and Southend-on-Sea to Get 1Gbps Broadband

Cambridge, Leeds and Southend-on-Sea have today been named as the next 3 UK cities and towns to be covered via Cityfibre and Vodafone’s joint deployment of a new Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband ISP network by the end of 2021. The rollout is being supported by an investment of £171m.

At the end of last year both operators agreed a joint £500 million deal to deploy FTTH ultrafast broadband (here). Phase One of this scheme (the build phase has already begun) would seek to cover a “minimum” of 1 million homes in up to 12 of Cityfibre’s existing cities and towns, which according to Vodafone is expected to be “largely complete” by 2021.

After Phase One there’s also the “potential to extend” this network up to 5 million homes (approximately 50 towns and cities, representing 20% of the current UK broadband market) by 2025, although that would require even more funding. Since then Cityfibre has announced that they’ve been acquired for £537.8m cash by Bidco and will be going private (here), which should resolve their future need for more investment.

So far the partners have announced that Milton Keynes would be the first to benefit from this rollout at a cost of £40m, (here), which was followed by Aberdeen for another £40m (here) and Peterborough for at least £30m (here). Shortly after that Cityfibre added Edinburgh, Coventry, Huddersfield and Stirling to their plan (here), which at that point reflected a total investment so far of £315m and 500,000+ premises passed (here).

Today the above have been joined by Cambridge, Leeds and Southend-on-Sea, which takes the total number of areas announced so far to ten. Overall this now represents over £465m of committed infrastructure investment in the programme by CityFibre to date, which should leave enough left for an additional two locations.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“Our roll-out is gathering pace. We have made investment commitments that will transform the digital capabilities of ten towns and cities forever. The full fibre age is taking hold across the UK and CityFibre is leading the charge. Britain should prepare for a copper-to-fibre switchover as this aging technology cannot keep up with the UK’s connectivity needs.”

Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK Chief Executive, said:

“Overhauling the nation’s broadband is a vital undertaking that we’re proud to be a part of. By bringing the benefits of full fibre to more and more cities and towns, from Stirling to Southend-on-Sea, one million homes across the country can benefit from this world-class technology.”

Details of the available packages, which range in price from £23 per month for 100Mbps to £43 for 900Mbps, were released last month (here). Since mid-September 2018, hundreds of customers in Milton Keynes have already placed orders for the Vodafone Gigafast Broadband service, while residents and businesses in Aberdeen and Peterborough will be eligible for the service from early November 2018.

Construction work is also set to start in Edinburgh, Stirling, Coventry and Huddersfield before the end of 2018. Meanwhile detailed city-wide planning has begun for Cambridge, Leeds and Southend-on-Sea, and Cityfibre is working closely with each local authority to co-ordinate the build and maximise the benefits of full fibre.

We should point out that the new areas already have near universal coverage of “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) networks via FTTC from Openreach (BT) and most can also access Virgin Media’s 350Mbps+ cable network. On top of that we note that there’s also a fair bit of ultrafast FTTP and G.fast available from Openreach in some of those areas, which is rising steadily.

Such competition could put pressure on take-up, although Vodafone’s are clearing aiming to undercut those via their faster service speeds and some aggressive pricing.

UPDATE 11th October 2018

The funding split is as follows:

Cambridge – over £20m
Southend – over £35m
Leeds – over £120m