CityFibre Confirm £25m FTTP Broadband Build for Rochford and Rayleigh

CityFibre has today confirmed that they will invest £25 million to deploy their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across the two neighbouring towns of Rochford and Rayleigh in Essex (England), which will also include the village of Great Wakering.

Construction work on the full fibre network in Rochford will begin imminently, while Rayleigh’s rollout is scheduled to get underway in spring 2023 and the aim of both is to put the new network within “reach of almost every home and business“. As work is completed in each neighbourhood, CityFibre will designate the homes Ready For Service (RFS) so they can order from a supporting ISP.

The build forms part of Cityfibre’s wider effort to cover up to 8 million premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity and c.£4.9bn debt) – 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, including 1.8m Ready For Service (RFS) via ISPs (here).

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

“We’re thrilled to be bringing the best available digital connectivity to the Rochford, Rayleigh and Great Wakering areas and cannot wait for the local communities to unlock the many benefits of full fibre infrastructure.

As our build team installs the network, it’s important to remember that any short-term disruption will pay off tremendously in the long-term – our network will enable residents to enjoy seamless home entertainment experiences and deliver buffer-free broadband for local businesses.”

We should point out that CityFibre’s network won’t be the only gigabit-capable broadband service available to local premises in the two towns, not least since Openreach has already covered a significant portion of both with their own FTTP infrastructure.

On top of that, there’s a small bit of coverage in Rochford from OFNL and a few buildings also have Hyperoptic’s service. But on the whole, there’s plenty of competitive scope in these towns for the new entrant. The lack of presence from Virgin Media will no doubt also help.