CityFibre Start GBP62m FTTP Broadband Build in Sunderland

CityFibre UK has today officially started the construction phase for their £62 million rollout of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network in the coastal city of Sunderland (Tyne and Wear), which is being supported by civil engineering contractors from MAP Group.

The announcement doesn’t tell us anything about which areas will be the first to benefit, when they’ll go live or how many premises will be covered, although the local build is expected to reach completion by the end of 2025. However, local planning data reveals that they’re starting work around the Southwick and Hendon areas.

Each area (e.g. streets) will usually take just a few weeks to complete; however, construction teams will typically only be outside each home for 2-3 days and CityFibre will normally be in touch by mail ahead of any work starting.

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).

Jason Legget, CityFibre’s City Manager for Sunderland, said:

“I’m immensely excited and proud to see work getting underway in Sunderland. The city has truly embraced the potential of full fibre and has a robust plan in place to be a genuine leader in smart city technology.

For residents, it’s important to remember that any short-term disruption will pay off tremendously in the long-term – once the network’s built, it will serve the community’s connectivity needs now and for decades to come.”

Naturally, an operator like CityFibre 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, and they’re building more FTTP into parts they’ve missed (northern areas). Openreach, Hyperoptic and OFNL also have a tiny bit of FTTP, but nothing to write home about.. yet.