Cityfibre Begin £26m FTTP Broadband Rollout in Eastbourne
Fibre optic developer Cityfibre UK has announced that they’ve begun work to rollout a new gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network in the coastal East Sussex town of Eastborne, which is being supported by a private investment of £26 million.
Once again this project forms part of the operator’s wider £4bn investment plan (here and 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.
Local contractor Lanes-i has been appointed to build the new network and they’ve already started work in the Hampden Park area (they usually aim for 85%+ coverage of every town or city they target). As usual Cityfibre is being supported by residential ISP partners like Vodafone, TalkTalk and Giganet, although we don’t yet know which of those will serve Eastbourne.
Adrian Smith, City Manager at CityFibre, said:
“It’s really exciting to be part of CityFibre’s gigabit revolution – CityFibre is doing everything it can to transform towns and cities across the country. Our digital infrastructure plays a crucial role in growing and protecting local economies, even more so during these unprecedented times when connectivity has proven vital to residents, businesses and public services alike.”
In terms of gigabit-class rivals in the area.. there aren’t many with good coverage. Openreach has built some FTTP in part of the town and a smaller alternative network ISP, Lightning Fibre, is also known to be operating in the Eastborne area but we have no idea how much progress they’ve made in the town itself.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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As for Lightning Fibre, last I heard they’ve only done a place near the exchange so far. Progress seems slow while lacking in regular updates.
Cityfibre will be interesting though. I hope they will cover most of the area. It won’t benefit me as I already have FTTP (via FTTPoD) but if I move to another property in the area then CityFibre’s coverage will hopefully help out as Openreach’s FTTP coverage is low at the moment.
Yep, every postcode I’ve tried has said ‘no’ on lightning’s checker. Been over two years since I registered my interest. They’re going to get pipped to the post at the rate they are going unfortunately.
FTTP is the true fibre network! Everything else is a fraud! Having co axial copper from distribution box to one’s home is still co axial, no matter how much fibre optic cable between distribution boxes. It is the effectual speed at the consumer’s end (the home) that matters. It’s like having a single lane road at the end of a dual carriage way- there will still be congestion on the single lane road.
You don’t say?!
Does anyone know about the planned rollout dates in Hamped Park and who would be selling to consumers? I have a copper broadband contract expiring in October and I would be super happy if they build it by then in Hampden Park. I tried to drop them email, but I have got no reply unfortunately.
Thanks
Sam