Cityfibre UK Start £23m Gigabit Broadband Rollout in Crawley

Fibre optic developer Cityfibre has announced that they’ve begun work to build their new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network in the large West Sussex (England) town of Crawley, which is being supported by a private investment of “at least” £23 million.

The project forms part of Cityfibre’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.

Once again, the operator, which usually aims to cover 85%+ of premises in every town or city they target, has also appointed local contractor Lanes-i to conduct the street works, which won’t come as much of a surprise as they’re already working on Cityfibre’s East Sussex town of Eastborne. Similarly, the build in Crawley and Eastborne will also share the same city manager.

The first construction work is said to have begun around the Langley Green area of Crawley. The new build will also benefit from Cityfibre’s existing Dark Fibre deployment under the West Sussex Gigabit project.

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 local competition, the town has already been well covered by Virgin Media’s gigabit-capable cable network and Openreach has some FTTP in parts too, albeit at a smaller scale. Meanwhile OFNL has deployed some FTTP of its own into a few new build home areas around Forge Wood. Suffice to say that Cityfibre won’t be alone in the local market.