CityFibre UK Finish Primary FTTP Broadband Rollout in Solihull
CityFibre has today announced the completion of their £25m “primary build” in the West Midlands (England) town of Solihull, which has expanded their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 44,000 premises (around 85% of residential properties), including most businesses.
The town-wide deployment – delivered via civil engineering firm Callan Connect – originally began in February 2021 and has thus far involved almost 235,000km of dense full fibre infrastructure. But the operator still intends to keep expanding in the town, such as by continuing to densify and connecting properties in multi-dwelling buildings (MDUs) and on private roads.
Solihull is only the latest in a growing list of deployments that Cityfibre has now completed, following others like Stirling, March, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Coventry and Inverness.
Bashir Ahmed MBE, CityFibre’s Area Manager for Solihull, said:
“The primary build in Solihull is complete. We’re extremely proud of the steps we’ve taken to successfully bring next generation digital connectivity to the town.
Engineering work will continue throughout 2023 to connect businesses and other services to our network. With the UK’s finest full fibre network under its streets, residents, businesses and public institutions will be able to reap the benefits for generations to come.
Solihull is a town 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 market’s long-term growth, and we look forward to building on our previous success powering the town’s future economic development.”
The work forms 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.
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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Do we have any idea how much of phase 1 and 2 they completed? I’d love to know what the plan is for new areas after 2, but obviously if they’re only 25% through phase 2 then it won’t be anytime soon…
Bashir Ahmed, stop flogging the dead horse… well almost dead.
Hasn’t anyone told you? Mr Mesch is busy negotiating the sale of Cityfibre to Virgin Media.
High inflation and today’s interest rate increase is only going to make things worse for Cityfibre.
I guess this will make the sale of the business even more urgent.
Personally, if I was signing a new FTTP contract I’d stick to a BT Openreach based ISP.
Yep, it’s a sure thing, completely inevitable. Only a matter of time before the sale is agreed.
Of course the biggest losers will be Cityfibre’s employees but not their investors or CEO.
But in the meantime they’ll be told everything is fine and everything’s going to plan.
Paul: “Personally, if I was signing a new FTTP contract I’d stick to a BT Openreach based ISP.”
Why? That’s illogical reasoning. Even in the unlikely even that Nexfibre (almost VMO2) bought Cityfibre, it would make no immediate difference to people connected over CF’s network since individual customers contract with ISPs, not CF. Nexfibre is all about building a wholesale network – and will probably ultimately become the owner and wholesale operator for VM’s non-HFC assets (or even them as well). And if Nexfibre put up the wholesale prices (an unwise choice since Openreach are the market price-setter), you just take your business back to an OR based ISP.
@Andrew G I don’t think it’s illogical to stick with Openreach.
My connection is absolutely essential to me and I need stability, I really don’t want the hassle of changing ISP if/when Cityfibre is sold.
Using Openreach I have confidence they’ll always be there providing me with uninterrupted, reliable internet access.
The initial negotiations for the sale of Cityfibre have been reported both in the Telegraph and on ISPreview, Greg Mesch/Cityfibre have not denied it.
Everyone is well aware consolidation is coming, it’s inevitable.
High inflation, rising interest rates, saturated market, very slow customer take up, etc. is making it more and more difficult to make it profitable.
We’ve already seen redundancies in an effort to reduce overheads but of course that will not be enough.
I predict that from now on we’ll only see Cityfibre starting new builds in areas where Virgin Media haven’t laid any FTTP.
Not overbuilding Virgin Media will make the purchase of Cityfibre even more attractive.
As Paul says, consolidation is inevitable.
‘Of course the biggest losers will be Cityfibre’s employees but not their investors or CEO.’
Unless you know something we don’t about how much money CF have spent so far, last I heard it was a lot, or how much Nexfibre would pay no idea who will be losing what. The investors get less than they put in, could easily happen, they lose out. The CEO in common with other employees got paid and remunerated so unless he has stock options that’ll get cashed in, in which case many other staff should too, he’s getting nothing from it.
I have every sympathy however jobs for life in telecomms aren’t a thing unless you go work for BT, and even then you’re in with a slim chance of getting the chop. No-one joins a private equity funded and owned business expecting job security I’d hope.
The staff have hopefully very transferable skills and if CF are purchased those that are made redundant should receive some sort of package and, hopefully, have no issues with their next career move.
I feel far more for the 400-odd that’re already down to be made redundant. Mergers and acquisitions happen and are a fact of life in business, been through more than one myself, businesses shedding staff due to corporate underperformance is a different matter entirely.
@Reality Bytes: “I feel far more for the 400-odd that’re already down to be made redundant.”
Yes, I agree completely and what makes it worse is that many of those 400 had only been recruited recently, some leaving good jobs to join Cityfibre, only to have the rug pulled from beneath their feet.
And many more than 400 are currently being left hanging in limbo, not knowing if they’re going to lose their job or not, cruelly causing stress and anxiety.
Cityfibre might be following the employment law but they should do the decent thing, pay them a couple of months salary and let them go on their way to find another job.
City Fibre are currently digging up in Knowle which is in Solihull, I will be interested to see the prices as I currently only have access to Virgin which aren’t cheap and Openreach decided to ignore my road.
On a positive note city contractors appear to be blasting through their work stack in a quick but safe manner.
Oh yes, they’re very good at digging up and making a mess. Just not so good at filling back in and making it tidy again.
Have a look at the photo I posted on the Cityfibre Facebook page.
I used to really enjoy my job at Cityfibre, but now I just feel extremely unsettled and anxious.
With this recent news of the possible sale of CF to Virgin Media I really don’t know what the future holds.
I’m afraid to say I don’t trust what my head of department tells me, in some ways I’d be happy to just take a settlement and leave.
I’m getting fed up with all the razzmatazz, all the hype and bigging it up. I would like my management to just tell me straight what is going on.
Yes, I know exactly how you feel and agree completely.
Judging how the question of the sale was answered on the all-hands call, the sale is gonna happen within next 12-18 months.
The select few keeping their jobs, should start looking elsewhere and jump ship.
@Not Accepted…
That’s terrible news. Cityfibre’s employee’s who managed to keep their jobs during the recent redundancies must be feeling pretty low at the prospect of losing their jobs again.
So Cityfibre employees are now working hard, building infrastructure for Virgin Media, the company that will swallow Cityfibre and ultimately make them redundant.
As Tom says… Why should I continue working hard helping to build Cityfibre just to benefit the company that’s going to buy it and throw us on the unemployment pile?
Not a nice feeling for a Monday morning, feeling angry, betrayed and taken advantage of.
It’s sad news.
The Cityfibre rollercoaster was fun and I’ve learnt a great deal but I guess it’s time to move on and beat the rush.
Anyone looking for marketing executives?