CityFibre UK to Start £50m FTTP Broadband Build in Maidstone
Network operator Cityfibre has today revealed that they’ll invest £50m to deploy their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across “almost every home and business” in Kent’s (England) largest town of Maidstone. The first construction work is set to begin during January 2023.
Little is known about the operator’s rollout plan or their choice of contractor for the build, but it’s worth noting that they won’t be the only gigabit-capable network in town. Virgin Media already has strong coverage of the area, while both Openreach and Netomnia (YouFibre) are busy deploying their own full fibre in the same location. Smaller builds also exist from Hyperoptic and OFNL, while Trooli’s rollout in Loose is edging into the southern parts.
As usual, this build forms part of Cityfibre’s wider £5bn+ investment programme to cover up to 8 million premises – across around 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here). So far, the operator has already covered 2 million UK premises – with 1.8m Ready For Service (RFS) via a supporting ISP (here).
Advertisement
Anne Krausse, Cityfibre’s Area Manager, said:
“Our new full fibre network in Maidstone will strengthen the town’s digital infrastructure for decades to come, helping boost the local economy. The technology will not only unlock huge benefits for businesses, it will also allow residents to enjoy seamless streaming when gaming or watching movies at home. We’re excited for our builders to get to work on the installation, and for the local community to reap the benefits of full fibre technology.”
End.
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 and Linkedin.
« ISP Beacons Telecom Expand FTTP Broadband Rollout in Wales
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5849)
- BT (3605)
- Politics (2656)
- Business (2372)
- Openreach (2372)
- Building Digital UK (2302)
- Mobile Broadband (2088)
- FTTC (2070)
- Statistics (1856)
- 4G (1763)
- Virgin Media (1710)
- Ofcom Regulation (1537)
- Fibre Optic (1444)
- Wireless Internet (1436)
- FTTH (1383)
Very nice to see that the west side of the town appears to be “planned” according to BID. Hopefully that means they will be the first to benefit considering other builders have started in the town elsewhere.
Gogo power overbuild, mighty morphin overbuild time
Maidstone will probably be the town with the highest number of operators but it’s not like CF doesn’t have enough cash to burn
Horsham in West Sussex, already has F&W and Box Broadband and has Openreach, Cityfibre and Virgin rolling out at the same time
Overbuild is ridiculous given so many areas even towns haven’t got anyone yet. Why have multiple different fibre trenches and customer connection points in the pavement.
I can understand overbuilding where VM is as the only ultrafast operator as most of their network for some years will be limited in terms of latency and bandwidth by Docsis on HFC, and because their network is not currently open to other competition like Openreach would be.
Overbuilding makes sense if the operator can make money. Some parts of the country will have no fibre because the financial case does not exist.
Probably a good reason those areas and towns have no FTTP yet. CityFibre are building in and very near existing network.
50m seems like an insane amount considering that it can cover 100k homes at 500 cppp, there aren’t that many homes in Maidstone
Around 65k homes so doesn’t appear unreasonable at all.
50m / 65k is a whopping 770 cppp
Even assuming a good uptake of 20% and a good ARPU of 30 it would take around 10 years just to break even
CF don’t just build to homes. They also build for councils, street furniture, 5G sites etc.
Payback periods of even 15 years aren’t uncommon. It’s all about take up to service that debt.
Let’s see how good their debt is now that the bank of england has been cranking up the interest rate dial
@John
Worth noting Cityfibre have no debt, there build is fully financed from private investment.
They will already have stipulated loss making for X years then once cities are live they return investment. Most of those investors are long term planners so they have time and money to wait for the network to mature and return an investment.
I’m in Maidstone. Virgin didn’t bother and Openreach are doing the fringe areas but seem to be taking some time. The more operators the better!
Hopefully I’ll be covered one day. They can’t all say no.
Virgin is rather an ISP whom customers are looking for alternatives. Better selection, lower prices.
It seems like some work close to the exchange has already taken place!