Community Fibre Invest £400m in Mass London FTTP Fibre Rollout

London-focused broadband ISP CommunityFibre has today announced a major investment of £400 million to help fuel a huge expansion of their 10Gbps speed capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the UK’s capital city, which is being funded by global equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC and management group DTCP.

Until now the provider has been working to roll-out their own gigabit “full fibre” network to cover more than 500,000 premises by the end of 2022, which was supported by an initial investment pot of around £90m from private investors (e.g. Amber Infrastructure and RPMI Railpen) and Government backed schemes. So far they’ve already built to cover more than 100,000 premises (mostly large apartment blocks, such as social housing) and have plans tabled for 370,000.

However, today’s announcement means that Community Fibre will aim to roll-out their full fibre broadband network to 1 million London households and businesses by 2023 (i.e. homes usually get speeds of up to 1Gbps, while businesses can access the top 10Gbps service).

The significant new deal will see investors Warburg Pincus and DTCP (advised by Greenhill) acquire a controlling stake in the ISP. On completion of the transaction, expected within a few weeks, Olaf Swantee will also join the provider as Executive Chairman. Olaf is perhaps best known in the UK as the former CEO of mobile operator EE (BT), which helps to show how important this network has become.

Olaf Swantee, CF’s Incoming Executive Chairman, said:

“I am excited to be joining a business in a sector that I am passionate about, where there is a clear vision and purpose. Working alongside blue chip investors such as Warburg Pincus, DTCP, Amber Infrastructure, and RPMI Railpen, will also open up new and exciting growth opportunities.”

Rene Obermann, Co-Head of Europe and MD of Warburg Pincus, said:

“Community Fibre aims to close the digital divide and promote social inclusion. Affordable high speed internet for London’s social housing, and free Gigafast connection to community centres and libraries will create limitless opportunities in education, recruitment, and training, with one click of a button.”

The move creates a much more significant competitor for established operators like Openreach (BT) and Virgin Media, as well as other rapidly growing full fibre players in the capital like G.Network. It’s also a sign of another alternative network (altnet), beyond the familiar names of Cityfibre and Hyperoptic, that has now managed to successfully grow into a much larger operation and over a fairly short space of time.

The fact that CF’s own full fibre packages are so cheap will certainly give all of those players something more to worry about. Residential packages tend to start at just £20 per month for a 50Mbps package (installation is free) and rise up to £49 for 920Mbps (average speeds). The overbuild picture in a few years time is certainly going to be interesting.

Meanwhile those of us still stuck with no access to or current plans for FTTP can only look onward in envy. At least we’re not alone in that long wait for something better than ADSL or FTTC.