Cityfibre Preps £75m FTTP Broadband Rollout in Bradford UK

After a long wait Cityfibre has finally confirmed that they will begin the £75m rollout of a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network in the West Yorkshire city of Bradford in Spring 2021. The city was first included into their plan two years ago, but until now not much has happened.

The work will form part of the operator’s wider £4bn investment programme (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.

At present the company already has a Dark Fibre network in the city, which was originally acquired from KCOM back in 2015 and has since been extended, as well as upgraded, to help serve local businesses. As usual this will help to form the foundation for their expanded deployment to reach “nearly every home and business” in the city (they usually target 85%+ coverage).

The Salford-based firm Network Plus has been contracted to handle the civil engineering work in Bradford, which is expected to commence in Spring 2021. The first area to benefit will be East Bowling.

Kim Johnston, Cityfibre’s City Manager, said:

“We’ve made great progress already across Yorkshire, so we’re excited to announce our £75m Bradford investment at a time when digital infrastructure has more than proved its value as an enabler for the economy.

We’ll be collaborating closely with Bradford Council to ensure the local community is kept informed at every stage of the process.”

Kersten England, CEO of Bradford Council, said:

“I am delighted that Bradford district has been selected as one of a growing number of places across the country to receive CityFibre’s investment to improve digital connectivity. Jobs will be created to construct this new network at a time when job creation has never been more essential, as we look to recover from the effects of COVID-19. Even more important is the transformational impact that this will have on our local business community.”

In terms of local competition, Cityfibre’s biggest gigabit-capable competitor will be Virgin Media (their DOCSIS 3.1 network recently went live in the city), while Openreach (BT) and Hyperoptic also have the odd small patch of FTTP in the area. Connexin also has a high-capacity fixed wireless network in the city, but that’s mostly only used for serving businesses.