Giganet Expand CityFibre FTTP Broadband Reach to 22 UK Cities

UK ISP Giganet (M12 Solutions) has today announced that their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband service on CityFibre’s network is being expanded to add another 22 cities and towns, which will bring their total coverage of that platform to 27. The operator has also added some new locations to their own fibre build.

Earlier this month the provider announced a huge investment of £250m with Fern Trading, which will enable them to build their own full fibre network to 300,000 premises across poorly served parts of Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex (here). But at the same time the operator will also continue to expand the availability of FTTP via Openreach and CityFibre’s wholesale networks in different parts of the country, to maximise coverage.

So far, the CityFibre based side of Giganet’s service has already been announced for Portsmouth, Swindon, Reading, Plymouth, Crawley & Horsham, but they’ve today added a further 22 locations including – Bath, Bournemouth, Bracknell, Brighton & Hove, Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Chatham & Gillingham, Cheltenham & Charlton Kings, Chichester & Arun, Eastbourne, Gloucester, Ipswich, Lowestoft, Maidenhead, Norwich, Peterborough, Poole & Christchurch, Slough, Southend, Weston-super-Mare, Worcester and Worthing.

So far as we can tell, this is the largest single announcement of service availability across CityFibre’s new FTTP broadband network, by any UK ISP, since Vodafone first joined the same platform in 2018. Giganet are also connecting each new area up to their core network via local high-capacity data links.

Giganet CEO, Jarlath Finnegan, said:

“Our latest expansion with CityFibre will allow us to connect more homes than ever across the UK, with honest and straightforward access to the best full fibre broadband. Coupled with our recent £250 million investment project, we’re very proud of the steps Giganet is taking to become one of the country’s leading Internet Service Providers.”

CityFibre is currently investing £4bn as part of their plan to cover 1 million UK premises with an alternative FTTP network by the end of 2021 (over 650,000 have already been reached) and then 8 million premises across 285 cities, towns and villages – c.30% of the UK (here). The latter target is expected to be “substantially completed” by the end of 2025.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“We’re thrilled that Giganet has chosen CityFibre’s networks to support their offer of next generation full fibre broadband to millions of homes across the South.

We are proud to be offering a new, world-class digital infrastructure platform for ISPs that provides them with improved products and economics, and a true competitive advantage. Giganet’s rapid expansion demonstrates the massive potential for new, dynamic and exciting brands to seize the full fibre opportunity.”

Today’s announcement should ultimately enable the ISP to serve more than 1.8 million homes in the South of England with a full fibre service. However, we should point out that other ISPs on CityFibre’s platform (e.g. Zen Internet, TalkTalk, Vodafone etc.) are also gradually expanding their availability as new areas go live, although at present your ISP choices will vary from location to location.

Customers in Giganet’s CityFibre areas will typically pay from just £37 per month for an unlimited 500Mbps (symmetric speed) package on a 12-month contract term, which rises to £40 per month if you want their top 900Mbps package. A free wireless router is included in that price.

Earlier on in this article we also mentioned Giganet’s separate and independent FTTP rollout in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex. Until now we knew that some of the first locations to benefit from that build would include Wimborne, Ferndown, Ringwood, Fordingbridge and the communities between (i.e. mostly the Dorset and Hampshire area). But we understand that the village of Henfield (West Sussex), Devizes (Wiltshire) and Tadley (Hampshire) have just been added and should go live in the coming months (nearby communities will also benefit).