Lite Access Joins Cityfibre’s 1Gbps FTTH Rollout in Cambridge

Cityfibre has announced that civil engineering firm Lite Access Technologies has been signed to help complete their £20m roll-out of a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband ISP network to 60,000 premises in the UK city of Cambridge (Cambridgeshire), which is due to complete by the end of 2021.

The operator began the local deployment alongside the John Henry Group (JHG) a year ago, which started by extending out from their existing 44km Dark Fibre network in the city. Since then they’ve managed to complete a sizeable patch across the areas of Chesterton and King’s Hedges in the city’s north east side.

As a result of today’s news Cityfibre now has two major contractors working for them in the city, which should help to keep their roll-out on track. Customers in live areas should be able to connect by taking out one of Vodafone UK’s Gigafast Broadband packages (these cost from just £28 per month for 100Mbps and speeds go up to 900Mbps for £48).

As usual all of this forms part of the operator’s £4bn private investment plan (here), which aims to deploy a 1Gbps FTTH broadband ISP network to cover around 1 million UK premises by the end of 2021, before potentially reaching their ambition of 8 million premises across 100+ cities and towns by the end of 2025 or later (c.30% of the UK).

James Thomas, Director of Supply Chain at CityFibre, said:

“We have been working with Lite Access Technologies on similar projects in Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds over the last few months and are now pleased to be welcoming them into Cambridge to help with the roll-out of the city’s new future-proof full fibre infrastructure.

Our Gigabit City Investment Programme equates to laying over 50,000 kms of fibre across more than 60 towns and cities, with 120,000 premises being made ready for service each month at its peak. To help us achieve these ambitions, we have been forging long term partnerships with successful, nimble contractors that are able to scale alongside us while being prepared to work closely with the local communities we serve. Lite Access Technologies is a great example of this having shown they can deliver full fibre networks to both residents and businesses with the requisite care and quality, and we look forward to working with them for years to come.”

Cityfibre’s biggest rival in the city remains Virgin Media, which can already cover nearly 90% of premises (a similar coverage level to Cityfibre’s target) and is working to make 1Gbps speeds available across their network by 2021 (here). Meanwhile Openreach’s FTTP network reaches about smaller proportion of local premises and their 330Mbps capable hybrid fibre G.fast technology covers around a third of premises.

The city is also home to another full fibre ISP called Cambridge Fibre but we don’t know much about their build progress or forward plans.