CityFibre Start Project Gigabit Broadband Build in Cambridgeshire UK
CityFibre has announced that their £69m state aid supported Project Gigabit broadband rollout contract for Cambridgeshire and adjacent areas (Lot 5), which was awarded in March 2023 (here), has finally entered the build phase. A total of “around” 45,000 hard-to-reach homes and businesses in the county are expected to benefit.
At present the operator is better known for their deployments of a new 10Gbps capable FTTP (full fibre) network across urban parts of the UK, but over the past year they’ve secured several rural-focused contracts under the UK Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit rollout scheme too. The aim of this project is to help extend 1Gbps capable (download) networks to reach at least 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025, before hopefully achieving “nationwide” coverage (c. 99%) by around 2030.
The work also supports CityFibre’s wider ambition of covering 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 already passed over 3.5 million premises (3.2m as Ready for Service) and they aim to add another million during 2024.
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Construction under the Cambridgeshire contract has now started, following extensive planning and design work, with the first locations in the county to benefit from the new network including Fen Ditton, Grantchester and Milton. The operator notes that the new infrastructure will also unlock a further £53m of commercial funding, which will separately enable them to reach a further 170,000 premises in the county.
Data and Digital Infrastructure Minister, Julia Lopez, said:
“Our multi-million pound investment in Project Gigabit is putting an end to buffering and bad connections. We are rolling out gigabit-capable networks faster than any other country in Europe, driving forward growth and new opportunities by providing millions of people across the UK with access to game-changing connectivity.
It’s fantastic to see that Cambridgeshire will be one of the first places in the UK to see spades in the ground, transforming the way people live and work in these rural communities.”
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:
“Our brand new network will go a long way to addressing the digital divide between our towns and cities and those in the countryside. There are real benefits to be felt from multi-gigabit speeds and unparalleled reliability and these are just as important to people living and working in rural areas. For the first time, underserved communities can choose between an old copper network built for phone calls and a modern full fibre network designed for the data age.”
The network operator has pledged to work closely with local stakeholders to “ensure disruption is minimised and that the build is managed safely and efficiently“. Typically, teams will only remain in each road for up to three days at a time, and residents will be contacted ahead of any work starting. In terms of the service itself, CityFibre is supported by various ISPs such as Vodafone, TalkTalk, Zen Internet and many others, but those will only come into play once the new network starts to go live.
On the other hand, the new Project Gigabit contracts will represent a big challenge for an operator that has, until now, largely focused on conducting more cost-efficient urban builds. CityFibre’s limited rural trials do give them some prior experience, but it remains to be seen how well they cope with doing such a project at scale. The operator has already had to re-focus their build engine toward these contracts, which has created its own issues with build suspension in other commercial locations (here).
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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“if you give us £69m then we’ll go to 45k properties, and because we’ve done that then we can get another 170k for £53m of our own money”.
If they weren’t doing those 45k then I doubt that they would be doing the other 170k for £53m.
Without doubt that Gigabit money is being used to subsidise their own “commercial” build.
In the broadest sense, this is pretty normal fair when it comes to BDUK and Project Gigabit. Operators will always, quite understandably, try to make the most efficient economic sense from any subsidised contracts to help make their wider models in other areas work. That’s not a bad thing. Some areas would otherwise be too expensive to reach, so if you can unlock those via a co-funded investment strategy, then so much the better.
I wish they would finish the several started and abandoned projects around the country before starting yet another new project! I’d quite like them to connect the cables they installed down our street in Chester nearly 12 months ago. My money is waiting if they would get their act together.
“A total of “around” 45,000 hard-to-reach homes and businesses in the county are expected to benefit.”
I no longer believe the above sentence. Milton already has Virgin, Openreach (mostly VDSL) and FTTH from Cambridge Fibre. I wouldn’t call it hard to reach at all.
Areas already covered by gigabit-capable broadband networks would not be in-scope for the Project Gigabit side, which focuses on locations where no builds are planned or active for at least the next 3 years.
From TBB article “Fen Ditton is only 500 metres from the existing CityFibre footprint in Cambridge, ”
so yes really hard to reach. (sarcasm mode off)
My thoughts exactly.
I question this Project GIgabit award if these are the places to Milton is a “hard to reach” area benefitting from it!
The question we all have to ask is why hasn’t Fen Ditton, given its proximity to the city, been covered by gigabit-capable broadband before or even been included in any future builds over the next 3 years (until now ofc). Something about the area must have made it too costly for every operator to consider, but I don’t know enough about the village to answer that myself.
I’d also point out that Grantchester seems to have Openreach FTTP.
Looking back to the lot 5 public review postcode list, Grantchester postcodes were generally ‘gigabit white’ which suggests it didn’t back in 2021/22.
Does this mean Openreach have built FTTP since then and Cityfibre are getting taxpayer money to overbuild ?
Or am I missing something ?
@Peter Delany, there’s an accessible list of postcodes? Where can these be found? Would be interesting to see
@Salem874
There is a link to the Lot 5 postcode list in this doc
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/uk-gigabit-programme-cambridgeshire-public-review
Grantchester is an interesting case, but it’s worth remembering that CityFibre’s contract may only be allowed to harness public subsidy on the premises in that village NOT served or planned to be served by Openreach’s FTTP. At present there are some premises, such as along some or all of Sladwell Close, where OR’s build doesn’t seem to reach. So you can’t always answer these issues at postcode level. Communities can be a patchwork of commercial and subsidised build, down to individual properties.
@Mark
My bad. Only did a couple of checks around the village but missed that Stulp Field Road, and all the closes off it, don’t have Openreach FTTP. Pretty much the rest of Grantchester does though.
Those without FTTP seem to be part of a small ducted estate of circa 70 properties.
It is interesting that Cityfibre are going for this. Will they just go to these properties or does the subsidy for them make it worthwhile to build to the rest of Grantchester commercially to compete with Openreach.
I’ve looked at Milton a little more closely. Virgin have pretty much blanket coverage except for the Norman Industrial Estate Area in the Southeast corner next to the A14 and also the North Lodge Park Road area in the Northeast corner. There are also one or two other properties that Virgin haven’t haven’t covered for whatever reason.
I’ll be impressed If Cityfibre reach all these. Perhaps not the industrial area which is right next to their patch but certainly Lodge Park Road.
So, after 10 months, Cityfibre have started the build phase of LOT 5.
On the one hand it is good they seem to be targetting the not-spots in the midst of plenty.
On the other hand, there are not that many properties in total across Fen Ditton, Grantchester and Milton that don’t already have access to gigabit capable broadband.
This means their build won’t make much of a dent in that 45,000.
It will be interesting to see how quickly these builds progress and how complete coverage will be.
““Our brand new network will go a long way to addressing the digital divide between our towns and cities and those in the countryside”
That’s if we can be arsed to actually finish a town first..
If Fen Ditton is the among the first to benefit in the county from the PRoject Gigabit aware, i have to comments:
1) How is Fen Ditton among the Cambridge(shire) areas benefitting from the Project Gigabit award (i could say the same for Milton)? Surely these would’ve had commercial build given their proximity to in Cambridge city itself? They’re not exactly isolated/secluded?
2) This build started at least a month ago, as CityFibre have been working in Fen Ditton for some time now. I’d assumed this was a commercial build though
*Project Gigabit award?
From the comments so far it’s clearly hard for people to get their heads around BDUK subsidy and how networks are built from that subsidy.
The fact that CF are building in an area may or may not be due to subsidy status. They may be building along the way to the targeted homes but as Andrews says this is not a bad thing. The BDUK homes have enabled Milton or Fen Ditton or where ever else to be built.
Starting a build is one thing – CF have a history of not being able to complete one.. Ask people in Barnsley who are streets away from houses who can get it – but CF just abandoned the build.. But it’s okay Sheffield, which has about 10000 providers already WILL be finished.
Backwards in every sense.
“Cambridgeshire UK” as opposed to Cambridgeshire USA?
Please tell us that was included ironically, or in the press release from CityFibre?
It’s included so that search engines find it easier to categorise the content by geography (SEO).
Wish they finish the builds they have paused rather than start another new build.
“Look mum. No conduit !” . . and its a professional installation.
And somebody’s butchered that brickwork – strange photo to provide for a promotional punt !
What’s 45,000 as a percentage of the total intervention area in Cambridgeshire?
Leaving towns half done to move on to another one.. I hope they go bust or get taken over.
shambles. Hoping that Zzooom are going to move in here anyway at some point (they are just over 1 mile away right now) but if not BT will be here in 2-3 years
Dont hold your breath. !!!!!!
Like some software engineers, . . . . Ronnie and Reggie piano lessons required, . . . . . with active participation of the piano lid . . “That’s the last installation contract you’ll be signing”
Insufficient oversight by OFCOM + a fallicious installation strategy – deliberately split-arse, by design, to keep UK back in the 14th Century telecommunicationally ?
Finishing Bath when exactly???? Cables on the poles but still can’t order several months after fitted.
Happen to go through a lot of old emails & found CF were due to start work in Bathampton January 2023.
So bloody annoying they stopped/abandon the work,just wish they finish what they started…
At the moment we have Truespeed here laying fibre,definitely won’t be using them.
The issue I have with the way this works is the slightly underhand way everyone tries to make out this is almost a public service type build done out of some sort of philanthropy by Cityfibre
In reality they will be utilising this this public money to extend their own commercial build in the direction of smaller areas they were always going to go for – until their investors got twitchy.
No-one is going to cable past homes that ‘have’ to get the ‘have nots’, without also overbuilding the ‘haves’
I don’t understand all the negativity here.
There was a tender, and CF won it. They can of course take advantage of this to extend commercial building they were planning, but ultimately more fibre in to more homes isn’t a bad thing.
Have CF a reputation for half finishing builds? Yes, are they realistically going to do that on a contract they have when UK gov? Probably not.
Also in terms of the white list, I’m told this isn’t definitive – where there is overbuild properties may be excluded for the reason, so in Suffolk the contract is for 15000 less properties than exist on the white list (of ~95,000), so would suggest it’s pretty useless as a reference.
Earlier this week I received an unsolicited letter from Cityfibre requesting I provide them a wayleave for my house in Milton, directly stating this build was funded by the government. The property already has full gig symmetric fibre from Cambridge Fibre (which has been available to the vast majority of the village, including North Lodge park which someone else mentioned above, since 2020/2021). Furthermore Virgin recently upgraded all their cabs in the village and are offering comparable speeds.
How is this not a horrendous abuse of tax payers money, or at the very least a serious misrepresentation of what they are doing?
It was me who mentioned North Lodge Park. I did see Cambridge Fibre, but they don’t seem to have a Postcode coverage checker so I couldn’t confirm coverage on specific addresses.
Interesting. As you say Cityfibre, or any other regional procurement provider, shouldn’t receive public subsidy to build to properties that have, or will shortly have, access to gigabit capable broadband provided commercially.
BDUK should ensure this doesn’t happen.
Part of the problem is that Cityfibre are building both commercially and as part of Project Gigabit in Cambridgeshire so it’s difficult to see what properties are actually attracting subsidy. Such detail is unlikely to be published in the public domain.
Milton already has good gigabit class broadband available so if Cityfibre have decided to also the cover your village, then it would seem to be a largely commercial build with very few properties actually attracting subsidy.
It’s puzzling then why Milton was a cornerstone of their announcement.
It would be good if Cityfibre could clarify the situation.