TFW Ffeibr’s Railway Full Fibre Network Connects to Europe’s Largest Data Centre Campus

Not‑for‑profit Network operator TfW Ffeibr (TFW Fibre), which is an arm’s-length initiative owned by Transport for Wales (TfW) and thus the Welsh Government, has announced that their railway based full fibre broadband and Ethernet network has been used to link South Wales directly into one of “Europe’s largest data centre campuses” – connecting Cloud Centres and Vantage Data Centres.

Back in 2024 TfW Ffeibr announced that they had built a new full fibre broadband network alongside several local railways and were offering access to help serve local communities (here). This occurred along the South Wales Metro, partly while carrying out huge infrastructure changes to electrify the railway line in the South Wales Valleys.

In short, the new operator was established to offer internet service providers (ISP) and other network operators access to the new infrastructure via wholesale. Some commercial companies have already reached deals to harness this network, one of the first of which was colocation and server hosting provider Cloud Centres Networks.

The use of this network to connect Cloud Centres with Vantage Data Centres is intended to create a “high speed route” that will give “local businesses fast, reliable connectivity for cloud services, AI workloads and other modern digital applications typically found only in the UK’s largest metropolitan hubs“.

Guy Reiffer, Managing Director of ffeibr, said:

“For a long time, access to the highest-quality digital infrastructure has been concentrated around major cities. What we’re doing here is fundamentally changing that, putting the Valleys on an equal digital footing and making them a realistic, attractive base for data-driven businesses.

This isn’t just about connectivity; it’s about confidence. When organisations see that they can access resilient, high-performance networks in places like Church Village, it changes how and where they choose to invest, grow and create jobs. That’s how we begin to unlock sustained economic growth in communities that haven’t always benefited from it in the past.”

The VP of Sales for Cloud Centres, Karen Foster, added that “linking together the two leading hosting centres in South Wales adds value to our customers, who often host across both centres for Business Continuity and greater solution agility.”