Cityfibre Starts £40m Gigabit Broadband Rollout in Dundee

Network builder Cityfibre UK has today announced that they’ve started the construction phase of a new £40m project to rollout their 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTH) broadband ISP network across the coastal city of Dundee, which sits on the Firth of Tay estuary in eastern Scotland and is home to around 150,000 people.

Once again this deployment forms part of the operator’s wider £4bn investment plan (here), which currently aims to cover around 1 million premises by the end of 2021 and then 8 million across 100+ cities and towns (c.30% of the UK) – the latter target is expected to be “substantially completed” by the end of 2025.

In this case the plan is to “reach almost every home and business in the city” (Cityfibre usually targets 85%+ coverage), with the first civil engineering work having already commenced in the Lochee area. The contractor for this build is GCU UK Limited, which has also previously been hired to support their other deployments in Aberdeen and Inverness.

As usual the operator will be able to harness their existing Dark Fibre metro ring network in the city, which has previously been used to connect local public sector sites but can also now form the foundation for their wider rollout across the city.

Allan McEwan, CityFibre’s City Manager for Dundee, said:

“For people across Dundee, their digital future is just around the corner. Work is now underway and that is something to be celebrated. Full Fibre broadband will help households access all the latest entertainment at lightning speed, but the benefits are far deeper than that – from enabling smart home technology to giving people the freedom to work from home with ease.

The investment also comes at a critical time for Dundee’s business community. Next generation Full Fibre connectivity can drive innovation and productivity, ultimately giving businesses the platform they need to realise their growth ambitions. And it won’t just improve business locally – it will also help businesses take their products or services to an international audience.”

Alison Henderson, CEOe of Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce, said:

“Investment in infrastructure is hugely important in enabling Dundee to move forward. As we’ve seen in 2020, many more people are working from home and that flexibility in working habits is definitely going to be adopted as a way forward. Home and workplace broadband speeds, coupled with network resilience and good connectivity remain vital features in giving everyone choice.

We’re very pleased to see this investment which will future-proof Dundee and allow businesses to improve productivity, invest in their own technology and equip people with the right tools to do their jobs, now and in the coming years.”

Naturally Cityfibre will face some competition from rival gigabit providers in the city, which has already been widely covered by Virgin Media’s network. Outside of that both Openreach and Fibrecast also have a few small FTTP deployments in the city, although the former may well extend theirs as Dundee was one of the locations named under LOT 1 of their R100 contract (most likely focused upon the surrounding areas).

At present the operator hasn’t announced which of their retail ISP partners will be delivering a service to local homes, although both Vodafone (Gigafast Broadband) and TalkTalk seem likely to be the future options. Sadly the operator has not said how long their build in the city is likely to take.