CityFibre Build 100th Fibre Exchange for UK FTTP Broadband Rollout
Network builder CityFibre has today announced the deployment of their 100th Fibre Exchange (FEX), which in theory should enable enough capacity to serve the first 4.8 million premises under their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband rollout across the UK (so far they’ve completed the build to 1 million premises).
Such exchanges (data centres) form a key part of the operator’s £4bn investment, which is currently working to cover around 8 million premises with their FTTP network – across 286 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here). This will also cover a total of around 800,000 businesses, 400,000 public sector sites and 250,000 5G access points.
The 100th purpose built, power-efficient, micro-edge data centre facility went live in Glasgow (Scotland) this week. Each FEX unit – aligned to Data Centre Tier 2/3 specifications – is roughly the size of a shipping container, served by two geographically diverse fibre routes, includes backup power (A+B UPS and standby generators) and are “able to serve symmetrical gigabit speed connections” for “up to 60,000 premises” at full capacity.
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The FEXs act as network hubs by aggregating local data traffic for transport across CityFibre’s national backbone (you’ll find routers, switches and servers inside). Alternatively, traffic in each city can be handed over directly to their broadband ISP partners via Dark Fibre services. ISPs, councils and mobile operators can also use these FEXs to store and process data closer to their customers, which reduces pressure on other parts of their network.
David Tomalin, CF’s Group CTO, said:
“Fibre Exchanges are the beating heart of our local networks and one of many areas in which CityFibre is setting new standards in our industry through a network that is Better By Design. Only when the optimum location for a FEX has been secured for long term use can the core network designs in each area be locked down ready for build to begin. Once in situ, not only is each FEX a secure, efficient and reliable data centre powering unbeatable broadband, it also empowers our partners to embrace edge computing technology and realise the benefits it offers for their customers.”
We should point out that each FEX uses a combination of free-air cooling systems and intelligent climate controls to minimise electricity consumption, maximise equipment lifespan and reduce waste. Mains electricity is also secured from renewable sources “wherever possible“.
UPDATE 11:37am
We’ve added a picture of CityFibre’s FEX site in Weston-super-Mare for context, which was kindly provided by one of our readers (Credits to Peter).
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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60,000 can’t all get full speed at once. Fortunately most people only use a few Mbps at peak times so there’s no need to provision 60 terabits a second to them.
What comes out of them is largely whatever ISPs providing services on the network build out, same as with a BT headend exchange.
Worth adding that the fibre coming into these sites will no doubt be upgradable with more capacity in the future, as demand requires, and without needing to run a new cable.
Multiples of 800G wavelengths based on this article:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/11/cityfibre-launch-first-800gbps-backbone-ring-to-serve-uk-cities.html
Dark fibre is where an operator leases a fibre from a provider without any electronics on the end – it’s ‘unlit’ hence dark – and they can choose what kit they want to use each end.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.5486033,-1.3189253,3a,48.9y,238.32h,85.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEwr27-7-_XQkWtw8bzWdSQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
This FEX site is interesting as it’s located in the car park of one of their contractors and it’s got a load of telegraph poles in the grounds, presumably to train riggers? I guess the entire installaton may be a training site for them.
Curious – Perchance, does anyone know the location of the CityFibre FEX in Slough? I assume it is within a building in the Slough Trading Estate or surrounding area.
Check the council planning portal, they usually have to file it there and searching for cityfibre as the applicant, or similar may well reveal where it is.
232 Berwick Avenue
Sad that the cityfibre network isn’t as documented as openreach (similar to virgin)… Would love to see a map of exchanges and cabinets
I think the interest in cabinet and exchange placement came from technology where distance from the exchange and cabinet mattered. This has never been the case with VM or CityFibre so no point in people investing the time to work out where their cabinet is.
Openreach exchange locations being a matter of public record helped, too.
I can’t see CityFibre wanting the location of their FEX to be all over the Internet.
For those with access to the right databases they can see where the cabinets, ducts, etc, are. The rest of us with no legitimate need are, rightly, left to our own devices.
Fair point… Would be nice to know where the local cabinet is planned to be installed and to check whether it is live during the rollout… Wishful thinking sadly
Nice picture Peter but the Glasgow FEXs aren’t as exposed. The ones I know are inside industrial units on industrial estates making them more secure than Weston-Super-Mare. You couldn’t leave one lying about in the open in Glasgow…