CityFibre UK Completes FTTP Broadband Build in Inverness
CityFibre has today announced that the primary build of their £24.5 million project to deploy a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network across the city of Inverness in Scotland has completed. Some 90% of local homes and businesses are now covered (28,000 premises).
The announcement states that the build cost £24.5m and started in 2019, although CityFibre previously told us that the construction phase began in June 2020 (we suspect the 2019 reference includes the planning / survey phase) and at that time we were told that it would cost £20m (here). This is their second city in Scotland, after Stirling, to reach primary build completion.
The project formed part of CityFibre’s wider effort to cover up to 8 million UK premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity and c.£4.9bn debt) – across over 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here). The operator has so far covered a total of 2.5 million premises (passing 22,000 premises per week.), but only 2.2 million of those are currently considered to be ‘Ready for Service‘ by an ISP.
The good news is that the operator plans to continue their work in the city, such as by connecting properties in multi-dwelling buildings (MDU), on private or unadopted roads, across business parks and in new build homes. We should add that the FTTP rollout is being underpinned by their existing Dark Fibre network in the city, which is also helping to connect 150 public sector sites across Inverness, Fort William, Thurso and Wick.
Overall, the operator has since laid over 400km of dense full fibre infrastructure across the city. But for those with their calculators out, the build cost works out as around £875 per premises passed, which seems quite high for an urban area. But then, Inverness does sit in a much more rural region.
Allan McEwan, Area Manager at CityFibre, said:
“Our rollout in Inverness marks an exciting step forward for digital connectivity across the city. With the UK’s finest full fibre network under its streets, residents, businesses and the city as a whole will reap the benefits for generations to come. We want to thank the local community and key partners, including the Highland Council, for their support as we have completed the rollout.
Inverness is a city filled with opportunity and ambition, which is why it has always been such an important build for us. Full fibre is vital for the UK’s long-term growth, and we look forward to building on our previous success powering the city’s future economic development.”
Drew Hendry, MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, said:
“The transformation of Inverness into a full fibre city is a hugely welcome step towards ensuring the Highlands thrive today and tomorrow, with a successful Inverness City at its heart. This commercial investment from CityFibre has been instrumental in sparking competition, encouraging wider investment and ensuring broadband users across the region get a better deal when it comes to their connectivity at home.
This is a major boost for residents, businesses and services alike, and we look forward to harnessing the power of full fibre to drive growth and inclusion across the region.”
The city remains a good target for Cityfibre because their only other major gigabit-capable competitor, of any scale, in the city is currently Openreach and their FTTP deployment is still playing catch-up.
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.
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Is it true that alnets require approximately 40% take-up to make a build economically viable?
Do any of the network builders publish their figures?
The take-up required for viability will vary between operators and locations, depending upon the type of location (remote rural vs urban etc.), the type of build (demand-led vs general) and the model adopted (e.g. B4RN’s social / volunteer approach vs commercial build).
On top of that, gauging take-up is something best done over time (i.e. only look at take-up in areas that were finished 2 years earlier) as it takes time to gain organic growth.
So, it’s never as simple as a single generalised figure. In dense urban areas, an operator may be able to get away with a much lower figure (c.20%), due to lower build costs and plenty of potential customers within that.
£875 of borrowed money per prem passed and rising interest rates. The takeup and viability answer is not pretty.
Inverness is incredibly urban. so that doesn’t explain the high build costs. It’s often suggested to split Highland Council in two (or more), precisely because Inverness is starkly urban.
Great news, of course, for the businesses and residents.
It is a very remote town so logistics may be complicated… still does not explain that high of a cost
Like, parcel companies take the piss with the ‘highlands and islands’ surcharges. But when you’re buying wholesale reams of cable and bitumen, I’m surprised there’s such an overhead to paying the lorry driver an extra day (round trip).
So I assume higher build costs mean a higher take-up rate required to make it economically viable, is that correct?
Sure, a higher take up rate—or upsell more customers onto higher packages.
In CityFibre’s favour, they’ve beaten Openreach to the punch in Inverness (for FTTP). And there is no Virgin Media. And, of course, it’s built now, so the build is a sunk cost.
Beating Openreach on rollout is only part of the battle. Now the rollout’s completed, they have to convince people to switch as they come out of contract with their current ISP’s, which is probably an uphill battle in itself. I suppose much will depend on the demographics around age and Internet usage.
I suspect Altnets would be shouting their take-up rate statistics from the rooftops, if they’re were easily reaching their goals.
Saying that you’ve won 50% of the 10-15% of customers who churn from their current ISP each year doesn’t really make for good headlines even for the successful ones.
Give it time.
Cityfibre installation… Warning contains bad language and violence!
https://www.tiktok.com/@ace2busyy/video/7198452798374071558?_t=8ZlLB1CG8AP&_r=1
**Missing context**
Kelly’s installers….
I’m pretty sure that says Cityfibre on the back of his jacket, not Kelly.
Kellys work for both Cityfibre and Openreach.
Cityfibre do not have any Direct labour for both Civils or installations.
Its kellys and im not suprised.
The three (CityFibre branded) Kelly guys who did my install were superb – friendly, professional and polite guys who did everything to the required standard and cleaned up fully after themselves!
It really does depend on who you get, and if you have any issues it’s always best to follow up with both the ISP, CityFibre AND Kellys themselves.
They have a reputation for a reason, but it’s always a shame to see the decent guys get tarred with the same brush as the morons.