Transport for Wales Launch Own Full Fibre Network for ISPs – TfW Ffeibr

In somewhat of a unique development for the UK and Wales. Transport for Wales (TfW), which is a not-for-profit owned by the Welsh Government, has launched a new “arm’s-length initiative” called TfW Ffeibr (Fibre). This has built a new full fibre broadband network alongside the railways and is offering access to help serve communities in the South Wales valley.

Essentially, while building the South Wales Metro and carrying out huge infrastructure changes to electrify the railway line in the South Wales valleys, TfW also seized the opportunity to, at the same time, install a new full fibre network. The new arms-length commercial subsidiary business was thus set up to help drive the new opportunity forward and realise the potential advantages for TfW and the Welsh economy.

In short, TfW Ffeibr (Fibre) was established to offer internet service providers (ISP) access to the new infrastructure via wholesale. The network itself currently runs through Wales’ Core Valley routes into the Capital City region, connecting some of the hardest-to-reach places in Wales.

The hope is that this will “enable significant inward investment to the region“, as businesses will now be able to enjoy multi-gigabit speeds – potentially attracting everything from data centres, the AI sector, manufacturing, large-scale film and TV production and other industries. It should also “support reducing areas of digital poverty in South Wales and contribute to regional economic development“.

Alexia Course, Chief Commercial Officer at TfW, said:

“We’re extremely proud and excited to be launching TfW Ffeibr today, to provide a state-of-the-art high-speed network for companies to use and sell within valley communities.

We’ve been carrying out huge infrastructure works in the valleys, electrifying the railway line as part of the South Wales Metro and this presented us with an opportunity to also build the infrastructure for a high-speed core network.

The South Wales Metro project is about physically connecting people and TfW Ffeibr is about connecting people in the digital world. At TfW, we’re fully aligned to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act and this new subsidiary business reinforces our commitment to improving the lives of people in Wales.”

Guy Reiffer, Managing Director at TfW Ffeibr, said:

“This is an industry and UK first – a rail infrastructure project that has diversified and utilised its construction to also install a high-speed, full fibre internet capable network.

We’re excited to launch today and we’re looking forward to working with telecoms companies to provide big-bandwidth full fibre internet for communities that are harder to reach.

For people living in the valleys, high-speed internet enabled by our core fibre offering will open up lifestyle and business opportunities.”

The announcement itself is quite vague, although the operator’s website points to a mix of Dark Fibre and optical wavelength products, which will offer a range of active services with data speeds from 10Gbps and all the way up to 100Gbps (Gigabits per second). The website is currently quite basic and doesn’t include a lot of information, but you can see the route it takes.

A number of network operators are currently building fibre in South Wales, such as Openreach and Ogi, which may well have an interest in this. But quite how much interest will exist is difficult to say, particularly as fibre has already spread across a lot of core routes for such operators and the hard part is often in extending that to individual premises.