CityFibre Improves Testing of UK Full Fibre Network with EXFO Exchange

Network operator CityFibre has today become the latest broadband infrastructure builder to adopt EXFO‘s Exchange solution, which is a solution that will improve the company’s ability to conduct field-testing of their full fibre network (covering. 4 million premises across the UK) and so also save them time, as well as money.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of broadband operators adopting EXFO’s various solutions (e.g. Openreach, Hyperoptic and Gigaclear). In this case, CityFibre plan to use EXFO Exchange to deliver cloud-based testing results of optical performance, helping ensure customers have access to the full gigabit speeds and high reliability.

CityFibre claims that, using this, related test jobs can be “completed 4x faster” due to automation delivered by the new platform. The deployment follows signing of a 5-year agreement between EXFO and CityFibre for EXFO Exchange to provide efficient management of test data and compliance, equipping field technicians and managers with insight for faster job completion and improved forward-looking operational compliance.

Tim Clark, Head of Passive Architecture and Engineering at CityFibre, said:

“We have deployed EXFO Exchange throughout our network because it remotely provides a fast, accurate picture of what’s happening at any given location through cloud-based insight. Accurate data is key to ensuring our carrier-grade network is optimised for the best high-speed, high-reliability, and right-first-time connectivity, which is exactly what our customers expect from CityFibre.”

CityFibre’s wider ambition is to eventually cover up to 8 million premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and £782m of BDUK / public subsidy) – representing c.30% of the UK.