Cityfibre Begin £40m FTTP Broadband Rollout in Medway, Kent

Cityfibre has today started the £40m rollout of a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network to cover “almost every home and business” in the conurbation and unitary authority of Medway in Kent (England), which has a population of around 280,000.

The project forms 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 (this may well depend upon how they define ‘substantially’).

At this point the keen observers among you may note that Medway hasn’t appeared on one of Cityfibre’s tentative future rollout plans before, but the area is home to two towns that have – Chatham and Gillingham. The fact that Cityfibre’s build has actually started in nearby Rainham Central, as well as Twydall, suggests that their plan for the area has been expanded, but we suspect it won’t extend too far into the more rural northern parts.

Work on the overall project is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. The contracted civil engineering firm for the project in Medway is Lanes Infrastructure, which are doing similar deployments for Cityfibre in Brighton & Hove, Crawley and Horsham and Eastbourne.

Aideen Sadler, CityFibre’s Local City Manager, said:

“Digital connectivity has never been more important. Our Full Fibre network will not only benefit businesses in the region but also households – something which is particularly vital with us spending more time in our homes than ever.

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.

With our construction partners at Lanes Infrastructure, we will do everything possible to minimise disruption as we begin to roll out this game-changing technology, which will future-proof Medway and lay the foundations for its digital transformation, whilst enabling vital economic recovery.”

As usual you can’t enter an area like this without facing some local competition from gigabit-capable rivals, particularly from Virgin Media, which has already covered the vast majority of the area. Openreach, Hyperoptic and OFNL also have a bit of FTTP in some areas, but nothing like VM.