TalkTalk and BrawBand Extend ISP Cover on CityFibre’s FTTP UPDATE

Budget UK broadband ISP TalkTalk has today confirmed that their 506Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based ‘Future Fibre‘ package is now available on CityFibre’s network in Inverness (Scotland) and Coventry. Meanwhile another ISP, BrawBand (HighNet), is due to live on CF’s fibre in Glasgow and Renfrewshire.

CityFibre is currently investing £4bn to cover around 1 million UK premises with their alternative FTTP network by the end of 2021 (650,000 have already completed), which is eventually planned to reach 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.

Until recently the only residential ISP able to offer services on this new network was Vodafone (Gigafast Broadband), although others such as TalkTalk, Zen Internet, Giganet and more have since been allowed to join, but they aren’t all live or available in every location yet. This patchwork approach to availability between different ISPs can be very confusing for consumers.

For example, TalkTalk is currently available to customers covered by CF’s network in Aberdeen, Bolton, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Adur and Worthing, Ipswich, and now Inverness and Coventry. Similarly, BrawBand was already available to CF covered homes in Inverness and they’ve now added Glasgow and Renfrewshire, but these won’t be live until “later in the year.”

By around the end of this year we’d hope that some of this initial confusion will subside as we expect ISPs like TalkTalk to become available across the whole of CityFibre’s network and the same goes for other ISPs. In the meantime TalkTalk charges from £32 per month for 150Mbps (symmetric) on an 18-month term (plus £4.95 postage), while BrawBand’s prices start at £37.95 per month for a 200Mbps package on a 24-month term (plus £49 installation).

UPDATE 6th May 2021

Updated to add that TalkTalk is now also live in Coventry, although why they didn’t mention this in yesterday’s news we don’t know (probably for the sake of PR spamming).