4,600 Gloucester City Homes Added to CityFibre’s FTTP Rollout

Some 4,600 homes belonging to Gloucester City Homes, which is an independently registered housing association in the city of Gloucester (Gloucestershire), are set to gain access to a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network as part of CityFibre’s ongoing £31m rollout in the area.

The expansion was made possible thanks to the signing of a new blanket wayleave agreement between the two organisations, which will make it quicker and cheaper for CityFibre to build their full fibre network across the estate. The Kier Group is known to be conducting the civil engineering work for this.

All of this forms part of CF’s wider £4bn programme, which aims to cover 1 million UK premises with their FTTP network by the end of 2021 (over 650,000 have already been reached) and then 8 million premises are expected to be “substantially completed” across 285 cities, towns and villages – c.30% of the UK – by the end of 2025 (here). CityFibre may soon extend this target to 10m premises (here).

Neil Madle, CityFibre’s City Manager for Gloucester, said:

“This agreement with Gloucester City Homes will help us to take the next step forward in the digital transformation of the city, making it one of the best-connected in the country. Over the last year, our broadband connections have truly been a lifeline as we adapt to new ways of working, socialising, and entertaining. We are looking forward to connecting more and more members of the Gloucester community to our network so they can reap benefits that come with a first-class and future-proof Full Fibre connection.”

Work on Gloucester’s new network started in January and the service is not yet live, although construction has now completed in large parts of Podsmead, Quedgeley and Tuffley. Once the entire build has been completed, “almost every home and business” in the city should have access.