List of UK Places Live with CityFibre’s FTTP Broadband ISPs – 2024 Edition
Sometimes it can be difficult to keep track of where CityFibre’s contractors are building their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, as well as which of those builds have started to go live (i.e. allowing you to order services from an ISP) or even been completed. The following list may help to answer that.
Just to recap. The operator is currently several years into a rollout that started in 2018 and could see them become the UK’s third major provider of broadband infrastructure after Openreach and Virgin Media (VMO2 + Nexfibre). As part of that they’re investing billions of pounds (c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and c.£800m of BDUK subsidy) to reach up to 8 million premises – across more than 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here).
At the time of writing, CF has already covered 3.5 million UK premises (up from 2.6m a year ago), although slightly less than that – 3.2 million – are currently considered as Ready For Service (RFS) via supporting UK ISPs (up from 2.3m). The network, once completed, should also pass around 800,000 businesses, 400,000 local authority sites and 250,000 5G access points (masts, rooftop sites etc.).
The latest official data reveals that the operator is now home to a total of 95 locations where their network is classed as RFS or Ready for Service (up from 75 last year) and many of those are still a few years away from completion. Once live, consumers tend to be able to pick from a selection of ISPs, but they aren’t all live or available in every location yet.
In each location, the new network tends to go live gradually (phased approach) as work is completed (neighbourhood by neighbourhood), although it can sometimes take around a year before the very first area gets enabled after build starts. One caveat here is that CF may declare some locations as RFS before any ISPs are available to offer a live connection, but we’re told this currently only effects less than 5% of the RFS list below.
Sadly, the table below no longer displays a full list of all their active in-build locations (last year we listed 86 locations), which is due to all the recent turmoil that has seen multiple urban builds suspended (here). This is partly so that they can re-focus around a smaller group of primary contractors and put more resources into their new Project Gigabit contracts with the government (here). But it also means their plans are in a state of flux, making them hard to pin down.
The table this year instead lists the 95 locations that are classed as ready for service (the vast majority already have ISP support) and 14 locations where their primary rollout has now completed (up from 9 last year). Take note that CF often categorises locations differently to general society – e.g. Chichester & Arun could be considered as disparate locations, but CF categorise them as one for their network build.
Just to be clear – CF’s network will currently only be live in parts of the locations listed below, and we don’t have an exact list of which ISPs provide services to each location – it varies. But some providers, like those mentioned earlier, either already have or are still working toward full national availability.
Exclusivity agreements, such as CF’s original deal with primary ISP partner Vodafone, can sometimes also place a temporary restriction on which providers you can choose for any given property. Such agreements can last for around a year after the network first goes live for your specific address, which can be very irritating and often causes additional consumer confusion.
CityFibre Network Locations and Build Status 2024
| RFS Locations (95) | Completed Locations (14 – Primary Build) |
| Aberdeen | Northampton |
| Barnsley | Stirling |
| Bath | Milton Keynes |
| Bentley Heath | Binley Woods |
| Blackpool | Peterborough |
| Binley Woods | Solihull |
| Bognor Regis | March |
| Bolton | Lowestoft |
| Bournemouth | Slough |
| Bracknell | Southend-on-Sea |
| Bradford | Yaxley |
| Brighton & Hove | Inverness |
| Brixworth | Bury St Edmunds |
| Bury St Edmunds | Coventry |
| Cambridge | |
| Chatham & Gillingham | |
| Cheltenham & Charlton Kings | |
| Chester | |
| Chichester & Arun | |
| Coventry | |
| Crawley | |
| Horsham | |
| Derby | |
| Dewsbury | |
| Doncaster | |
| Dundee | |
| Eastbourne | |
| Edinburgh | |
| Gateshead | |
| Glasgow | |
| Gloucester | |
| Great Glen | |
| Great Wakering | |
| Great Yarmouth | |
| Halifax | |
| Harrogate & Ripon | |
| Hartlepool | |
| Hastings | |
| Havant | |
| High Wycombe | |
| Huddersfield | |
| Inverness | |
| Ipswich | |
| Kettering | |
| Leeds | |
| Leicester | |
| Lincoln | |
| Loughborough | |
| Lowestoft | |
| Luton | |
| Maidenhead | |
| March | |
| Middlesbrough | |
| Milton Keynes | |
| New Edlington | |
| Newark on Trent | |
| Newcastle Upon Tyne | |
| North Tyneside | |
| Northampton | |
| Norwich | |
| Nottingham | |
| Peterborough | |
| Plymouth | |
| Poole | |
| Christchurch | |
| Portsmouth | |
| Preston | |
| Queniborough | |
| Reading | |
| Renfrewshire | |
| Rochdale | |
| Rochford | |
| Rossington | |
| Rotherham | |
| Rothwell | |
| Rugby | |
| Sheffield | |
| Slough | |
| Solihull | |
| Southend-on-Sea | |
| St Helens | |
| Stirling | |
| Stockton-on-Tees | |
| Sunderland | |
| Swindon | |
| Wakefield | |
| Wellingborough | |
| Weston-Super-Mare | |
| Whittlesey | |
| Wokingham | |
| Wolverhampton | |
| Worcester | |
| Worthing | |
| Yaxley | |
| York |
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that while CityFibre has already completed their primary builds for several locations, the operator can often still be found extending coverage (i.e. beyond their original build plan) in many of those same areas. Privately, we understand that, in urban locations, they usually target coverage of around 85%.
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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Mark, have CityFibre been able to give you any example postcodes in Loughborough where their network is live? I’ve been chasing service availability for a business that has been “live” since November but no ISP can submit orders.
I’ll ask, as it does seem to be a location with very little RFS progress.
@Jonny here are some examples…
LE11 5UE
LE11 5YZ
LE11 1LN
LE11 1LT
LE11 5UJ
I checked some addresses in those postcodes and the CityFibre website says “soon” and the little van animation stops at the Testing heading. This is where it’s been for several months now.
Build work here just down the road in Shepshed appears to have ground to a halt. A few weeks ago half the town appeared to be in city fibre high Vis.
Very little of Loughborough is actually RFS, no answers from anyone as to why though according to broadband provider cabinet was released on 29th September 2023 but marked by CF to not accept orders and no explanation why. CF tracker just says list availble shortly (has said this since September) and when trying to contact them just bounced back as to contact service provider.
From other forums and speaking to friends in area not just this street, wouldn’t be surprised if the 5 postcodes posted in other reply is extent of their coverage here.
CF’s build was halted as it reached my estate in North Tyneside, hope the build resumes in the near future.
how many of those 95 locations have paused and have been for some time, Bath, Gloucester, Weston super mare, Cheltenham for example. Small bits of the area are RFS but everything else ground to a halt.
Seeing the same in the South East across Brighton & Hove, Horsham and Crawley. Only defects are being repaired
Same in the area of Maidstone that is almost complete before it was paused. LA defects work has been going on since January. I was hoping after that they might bring it live.
Same in Huddersfield, Cityfibre do 80% of a town then move on then claim they done it all, bunch of lies to claim more government funds. Come back to all the city’s and towns you started Cityfibre and actually finish what you started!
They don’t claim to have built everything in an area or claim they will. 80-85% is about normal for them. No network builder will promise to cover every home and business.
Not sure what you’re talking about with regards to them claiming more government money either: they haven’t received any government funding for Huddersfield and aren’t going to. Even if Openreach, Virgin Media and everyone else ignores the areas the streets they haven’t covered CityFibre don’t have the contract for West Yorkshire.
Really it is only a list of presence. Many areas are only partially covered and as highlighted there is a lot of civils still lying idle.
CityFibre is now live in Great Yarmouth, I was their first install as of yesterday on Yayzi.
XGS-PON build but currently limited to the 1.8/1 plan until CityFibre activate it.
Lots of digging in Wokingham over the last couple of years, but I’m unable to connect.
It’s hard to find dates … Zen are offering pre-registration, Giganet offering “Pre-order from July 2024”
Hi Peter. Wokingham is one of my builds, if you want to message me on Linkedin or email me I can look into the detail for you.
Impossible to get any info from them – I’ve tried many times. The Gloucester build has been suspended for ages, and they cannot provide any updates. So tens of thousands of people in a medium city remain in a fibre desert, abandoned by CF and OR. Who will come and give us fibre now? Ironically, we do have them at work, in our central Cheltenham office – the network is notably less reliable than OR, so far!
Nearly 95% of Gloucester district has access to gigabit right now?
Gloucester does NOT have 95% gigabit coverage. There is good Virgin cable coverage but openreach have not started and city fibre did Quedgely (south side of Gloucester) before the pause. Nothing has progressed for a year or more.
Immensely frustrating.
Do you know if Cityfibre have made any progress on integrating with other wholesale providers? e.g Toob’s own network?
I doubt they will ever come here, just like Virgin will never come here, we already have one Altnet and Out of reach, so I doubt there would be enough customers to make it viable for another network. Also, people complained enough about roadworks when ZZoomm was building their network, there would be hell to play if another network provider started digging up the roads and pavements again
Even though you now have FTTP after posting for years about not wanting it, you’re still posting about not wanting it
Plusnet pushed me to it by not giving me a decent offer on FTTC, trying to push me to their FTTP on a 24 month contract at a price I did not want to pay for a speed I did not need. I could have gone to a slower speed, but again they wanted me to take out a 24-month contract and I did not see the point in going through the hassle of getting FTTP installed for the same speed.
So when Zzoomm offered me 500Mb/s FTTP for more or less the same price as I was paying Plusnet for 36Mb/s it seemed the right thing to do. I never realised that ZZoomm was also offering 150Mb/s at the time for £19, I would have taken that, but there you go.
It was only after I had ordered Zzoomm that plusnet decided to offer me FTTC on an 18-month contract for £25 or something like that.
If I stay with Zzoomm when contract have ended I will go down to 150Mb/s, it is more than enough for what I need. But we will see, the price difference now between FTTC and zzoomm fibre is pretty close, I looked at now broadband, but is it really worth changing back just for £4 a month? £1 a week, not much you can do with that, I suppose it can buy cheap bread and spread.
VM or, more accurately, Nexfibre, are building in plenty of places smaller than Hereford with Openreach + altnet FTTP available.
They’re building in Worcester right now, heading west and south-west from their existing network I believe Hereford is south-west of Worcester. They’re also building to your north extending the network in Shrewsbury.
What might prevent them building there is more that you’re in the backside of nowhere with no major population centres nearby so it’s a bit of a trek getting to you but the actual city itself if they can get to it won’t be a problem other than the usual suspects there are everywhere to some degree complaining about streetworks. Usually the same people who complain about planning applications nearby.
They’re due to release a new rollout plan in the not too distant so watch that space. https://www.nexfibre.co.uk/
I noticed they are building in Worcester, but that is a large city than Hereford and I think is more populated. As you said, Hereford is in the backside of nowhere. Hereford has a population of around 55,000, Worcester is double that.
Also, it may be too late for another network, with Openreach and Zzoomm rolling out their network, how many people would change now?
Changing with FTTC or even ADSL was easy enough, just get in touch with the provider you are changing with, and they will do the res, send you a new router, you plug it and away you go.
Changing to a new FTTP network involves drilling more holes and more cables and more boxes stuck on the outside.
I can’t see it happening myself, but then again I was shocked when Zzoomm started to build their network.
As for people complaining about roadworks, Zzoomm made a right mess in many places and that did put some people off ordering Zzoomm. I got annoyed with them once as they blocked off a cycle path.
Openreach used their own ducts so did not make such a mess, well so far, saying that they were digging up the road not far for me, I ask them if they could fill in the potholes when they fill their hole in. LOL.
May make a better job than our council
We will wait and see, I doubt I will bother if it does, not saying I won’t, but I can’t see it myself. Zzoomm works fine, I don’t see the point in changing to another network or provider as prices are more or less the same across them all, well Zzoomm is cheaper than most providers on Openreach and has a better network and is reliable these days.
As I have said before, if I change, it will be back to FTTC.
On the matter of Worcester being larger they also just built to the village of Newent in between you and Gloucester. They’ve lots of villages they’ve built to, as well as small towns.
Your purchasing decisions are your own, relevant to you alone, and play no part in Nexfibre’s or anyone else’s decisions on where to build.
@XGS the guys crying over altnet prices, he’ll go mental if he had to pay Virgin prices.
@XGS
My next door neighbour’s daughter lives in Newent and said something about building around there, but Newent is not a village, and what has that got to do with Worcester?
I never said my purchasing decisions have anything to do with where companies build, their networks. As I said above, i doubt very much if City fibre or any other Alt nets will build here.
@QQ, I am not crying over the prices and I would not pay virgin prices as I would never use Virgin.
My bad on Newent but point is it’s tiny but Nexfibre still built there. Hereford’s size means nothing.
Nexfibre have done many areas with Openreach and an altnet present. They have to in order to reach their coverage target.
It’s quite likely they’ll build Hereford eventually. Copious amounts of streetworks for people to complain about.
Noticed CF has started popping up on One.Network again & are working in several areas of Bath.
And also had email from CF saying they have started planning again for my area.
Blackpool build has barely progressed in years, and they’ve stopped work entirely except for the odd defect remedy job. They had a massive head start on Openreach but the entire Fylde coast will be covered before CF get out of the one suburb north of town.
Build in Dunstable and Houghton Regis was announced in early 2022 to be done late 2023. Is now April 2024 and from public roadworks information, nothing has happened here. Meanwhile, Houghton Regis isn’t even considered by OpenReach either, but the new development next door has fibre installed. Bit maddening.
Blame the local council for the glacier approach as it’s them who signs off on road closures to carry out the work.
For a example on how good the local council is (I’m referring to Central Beds here) there’s a block of flats near the Sainsbury in Dunstable that has yet to have residents as there’s various building defects with it and that’s been there for over 5 years now!
In a ideal world though, local councils would be more proactive and the companies concerned should simply work continuous 24/7 or least 9 to 5 7 days a week until completion of project.
Where’d they announce completion of the entire build in late 2023? Seems pretty rapid for the whole of Luton and Dunstable.
Openreach as busy in the Luton area of Stopsley, Limbury, Biscot. OpenReach finished the Biscot road area about 2 months ago.
As for Cityfibre they are doing the Kingway, Hightown, Dallow areas current for the next 4 months.
They started in only a couple of areas in Rochdale and then disappeared. Their website doesn’t give much info.
Not a good look if they’ve stopped the build on the doorstep of one of their wholesale customers (Zen).
City fibre Great Yarmouth emailed me 6 times that I can order but when i go to city fibre page then try to place order the isp says NOT Available ? don’t understand
I phoned Zen they say No to city only BT but city saying Zen is available tried several isp getting the same problem no way of contacting City to explain situation
Have to say, for a build that’s allegedly not paused Leeds seems to be very quiet for anything other than sparse remedial works, and the network seems to end very abruptly indeed with lots of areas having empty ducts or unlit fibre.
Last time I saw this much orphan plant being created was Yorkshire Cable going pop. CityFibre evidently aren’t going pop but if this isn’t a pause it’s doing a great impression of one.
I still can’t get my head around the altnets leaving half finished works unfinished for months and even years. If you’ve shelled out to start works then it would seem logical to get them finished as quickly as possible and start getting some revenue in. Time is money as they say.
Like pulling ducks teeth here on the East side of Chichester.
We had their cables pulled into our estate’s service man-holes roughly 18 months ago.
Dozens of them. Got all excited.
Giganet has been “On its way” and “Register your interest” malarky for the last 9 months.
Finally, 3 months ago, CF connected 2 dwellings on the nearby main road (5 meters away).
Still nothing to worry about really, we have O-Reach FTTP for the last 24 months.
But should CF ever pull their finger out, it would put a smile on my face have them install.
Fibre laid in combe down, bath. Still not live 12 months passed
Only about 1/3 of Barnsley is done before they canned the rest of it . ZZooom did 1 tiny village and then left. so messed up it’s unreal.
Stuck on FTTC?
I’ve been keeping an eye on Barnsley’s Cityfibre progress on bidb.uk for a while now and they’ve done some of the town centre and a couple nearby villages, I was hoping to see them near my village but the only place I’ve seen them lately is some small dots around Monk Bretton/fish dam lane.
Why have they stopped? What exactly are they waiting for?
Even Openreach say Barnsley FTTP “Will be built some time in the future”
I’ve honestly lost hope at this point.
in the initial plans along side inverness, they were going to be bringing FTTP to wick and thurso and there has been absolutely no updates on this at all, probably quietly changed their plans, sick of all these companies giving us promises in the highlands but theyre leaving us behind, absolutely disgusting
CF installation has died of dead here in Mirfield. Cable hanging from telegraph poles no work done since July.. complete and utter shambles!!!
Interesting how Queniborough gets a mention but not Syston, just down the road, which was RFS 12 months earlier.