CityFibre Confirm GBP45m FTTP Build in Luton and Dunstable UPDATE

CityFibre UK has today confirmed that they will invest £45 million to deploy their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to be put “within reach of every home and business” in the two Bedfordshire (England) towns of Luton and Dunstable.

At present the operator does not yet appear to have formally finalised a civil engineering contractor for the job (no doubt they will soon), although construction work on the full fibre network in Luton is currently set to begin in April 2022, while Dunstable‘s rollout is scheduled to get underway in “early” 2023.

The rollout forms part of CityFibre’s wider £4bn investment, which has already covered 1 million UK premises and aims to have 8 million “substantially completed” – 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.

Jean Gowin, CF’s Local City Manager, said:

“The next chapter in Luton and Dunstable’s story starts here and I’m delighted that we will soon be adding these locations to our full fibre network. As we future-proof Luton and Dunstable’s digital needs for generations to come, we cannot wait for residents and businesses to see what is possible with digital connectivity that propels you forward rather than holds you back.”

As usual CityFibre will not be the only gigabit-capable broadband network in town, with Virgin Media (VMO2) having already covered most of both areas. On top of that, there’s some limited FTTP coverage from Openreach, which is currently being expanded across Dunstable, but oddly they don’t seem to have as much interest in doing Luton.

In addition, Glide, Hyperoptic and OFNL also have a few patches in the two towns, but most of Glide’s build seems to reflect their older FTTC network.

UPDATE 12th April 2022

Construction has begun in Luton, with works starting in the Stopsley area, and is being delivered by Instalcom Limited on behalf of CityFibre.