Cityfibre Preps Start of GBP23m Halifax FTTP Broadband Rollout

CityFibre has today announced that they’ll begin the £23m rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network in the large West Yorkshire (England) town of Halifax during January 2022, which will be supported by civil engineering firm Nmcn (they’re also working with them in Barnsley).

The operator states that their new “town-wide network” will bring full fibre connectivity within reach of “almost every home and business” in Halifax (they tend to target around 85% of premises), although it’s unclear precisely how many premises will be covered by their network or when their local build will reach completion.

All of this forms part of Cityfibre’s £4bn commitment, 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 yet extend this target to 10m premises (here).

Steve Moore, CityFibre’s City Manager, said:

“CityFibre is making major strides across Yorkshire when it comes to enabling towns and cities with gigabit-capable broadband and Halifax is next in line to reap the benefits of this transformative technology. We cannot wait for residents and businesses to see what is possible with digital connectivity that propels you forward rather than holding you back.”

In terms of gigabit-capable competition in the town, Virgin Media already covers the vast majority of premises. But outside that, Openreach and Hyperoptic only have the smallest pockets of full fibre coverage, which provides CityFibre with a good opportunity to steal away market share from rivals.