Elevate Put New £7m Full Fibre Broadband Network Live in Cardiff

Alternative network operator Elevate (formerly Telcom and Luminet) has today announced that they’ve completed the deployment of a new full fibre “Hypercity” network across the city of Cardiff in Wales. The new network gives over 5,000 businesses access to dedicated internet speeds up to 10Gbps and over 4,000 homes access to speeds of up to 1Gbps.

Just to recap. The Cardiff Council (Gyngor Caerdydd) has long been aware that patches of the city still lack any commercial upgrade plans for gigabit broadband and suffer from sub-30Mbps broadband speeds, which is what they’ve been trying to improve – using a £7m+ funding boost from the Welsh Government that was first awarded in 2022 (here) via the Local Broadband Fund (LBF).

Last year we reported that Telcom had won a contract to deliver the first phase of this network roll-out (here), which is understood to have delivered the new fibre connectivity to 79 sites, both residential and commercial. The same operator was then contracted to deliver Phase 2, which focused on premises identified as high on the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) and was due to complete by March 2025 (here).

The new network has now been completed. The company will operate under the Elevate brand for business customers, and WeFibre for residential customers in their homes. Elevate Wholesale will also be working with local IT organisations to support their customers’ connectivity needs in the City.

Elliott Mueller, CEO at Elevate®, said:

“Working in the cultural and commercial centre of Wales, businesses across the region need rapid and resilient access to the best possible digital infrastructure.”

When we were awarded the contract back in 2023, we committed to full fibre coverage across Cardiff by 2025, and we’re delighted that the work we’ve undertaken with Cardiff Council and the Welsh Government has delivered exactly that.”

Isabelle Bignall, Chief Digital Officer at Cardiff Council, said:

“Broadband is a necessity in this digital age, and access to reliable connectivity is essential to help our local businesses flourish and our residents thrive. I am proud to share the transformative impact of Cardiff’s Local Broadband Fund project which has successfully delivered gigabit speed connectivity to the most digitally deprived areas of the city. This project has boosted connectivity for businesses and residents, driving economic growth and enhancing daily life in Cardiff. Alongside the improvements in broadband infrastructure, this project has also invested in our local communities.

Elevate has provided Cardiff’s Virtual School with online tuition credits to enable students, who may struggle in a traditional school setting, to complete their English and Maths GCSEs. WeFibre offers an affordable social tariff helping to reduce the financial barriers to connectivity, and 15 community sites have received free-for-life gigabit internet connections, helping to ensure that everyone in our community can stay connected and flourish.”

We should point out that the vast majority of Cardiff and surrounding areas are already covered by gigabit-capable broadband networks, mostly via Hybrid Fibre Coax (Virgin Media) solutions and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure from the likes of Openreach, Hyperoptic, Ogi, FibreNest (Persimmon Homes) and the community orientated Michaelston-y-Fedw CIC project. But the above project should have helped to close many of the remaining gaps.