CityFibre Invest £42m to Cover Middlesbrough with 1Gbps FTTP

Cityfibre has today announced that they intend to invest £42 million in order to cover the large North Yorkshire (England) town of Middlesbrough with access to their new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network, which is being supported by civil engineering firm MAP Group (UK).

The new deployment 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.

As usual Cityfibre, which is being supported by residential ISP partners like Vodafone, TalkTalk and Giganet, appears set to cover “nearly every home and business in the area” (they usually aim for 85%+ coverage) and early engineering surveys have already begun. The build itself is then expected to begin in December 2020.

Jason Legget, City Manager at CityFibre, said:

“Our network build is already progressing well in Newcastle, so it’s exciting to now look to our £42m Middlesbrough Full Fibre investment. We are working in close partnership with Middlesbrough Council to transform the town’s digital infrastructure, ensuring that the digital needs of those working and living in the town are met now, and in the future.”

The announcement doesn’t specifically say how long the build itself, once it begins, will take to complete. However, the Mayor of Middlesbrough, Andy Preston, does state that “in 18 months’ time the incredible broadband speeds that CityFibre is bringing will help us to create more business and more jobs.”

As usual the operator won’t have Middlesbrough all to itself. In terms of gigabit-capable rivals, cable operator Virgin Media already covers the vast majority of the town and Openreach’s FTTP is present in a few smaller areas.