{"id":24645,"date":"2020-11-05T08:18:59","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T08:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=24645"},"modified":"2020-11-09T13:31:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T13:31:04","slug":"cityfibre-sign-1-5bn-of-contracts-for-uk-fttp-broadband-rollout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/11\/cityfibre-sign-1-5bn-of-contracts-for-uk-fttp-broadband-rollout.html","title":{"rendered":"Cityfibre Sign \u00a31.5bn of Contracts for UK FTTP Broadband Rollout UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cityfibre<\/a> has today signed \u00a31.5bn worth of civil engineering contracts (overall total of \u00a32.5bn), which means they’ve now secured enough capacity to extend their 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP<\/a>) based broadband ISP network to 5 million UK premises, with all projects scheduled to be in build by summer 2021.<\/p>\n

The new construction contracts form part of the operator’s wider \u00a34bn<\/strong> investment programme (here<\/a>), which currently aims to cover around 1 million premises by the end of 2021 and then 8 million across 100+ cities and towns (c.30% of the UK) \u2013 the latter target is expected to be “substantially completed<\/em>” by the end of 2025. The new network is being supported by ISPs including Vodafone<\/a>, TalkTalk<\/a> and Giganet.<\/p>\n

So far Cityfibre<\/a> has awarded contracts worth \u00a32.5bn<\/strong> for reaching 5 million premises, which means we can expect more announcements in the future. The new contracts will help to create over 3,750 new local network construction jobs as part of a 3-year recruitment and training programme to provide up to 10,000 people<\/strong> with jobs (mostly engineers) to help rollout the new network.<\/p>\n

The latest deals, which are being supported by construction management firm Bechtel<\/span><\/strong>, are said to reflect deployments that will span across 27 of their targeted towns and cities, which by themselves equate to around 3 million additional premises (5 million when you add in the existing contracts). A total of 66 cities and towns now have at least one construction partner attached, although so far Cityfibre has only named around 62 of these.<\/p>\n

Greg Mesch, CEO at CityFibre, said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“By awarding these full fibre network construction contracts, we can ensure we have the construction resources we need to get the job done, bringing world-class digital infrastructure a step closer to millions across the UK. Each contract represents hundreds of jobs and upskilling opportunities for local people, building the networks Britain needs to survive and to thrive in a digital age.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oliver Dowden MP, UK Digital Secretary (DCMS), said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It is our national mission to connect every corner of the country to lightning fast gigabit speeds and we\u2019re set to spend a record \u00a35billion to achieve this.<\/p>\n

But we cannot do it alone so I welcome CityFibre\u2019s substantial investment to plug millions of homes and businesses into the social and economic benefits of next-generation broadband and create thousands of jobs in the process.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Admittedly it will take several years for Cityfibre to truly build itself into a serious infrastructure competitor to Openreach<\/a> (BT<\/a>) and Virgin Media<\/a>, but what today’s agreements help to signify is that they now have both the practical and economic foundations in place to turn that dream into a reality. The operator’s build phase may have got off to a slow start, but its future ramp-up pace looks set for a significant increase.<\/p>\n

The first phase of their Accelerated Tender Awards Programme<\/strong> (ATAP) may now have ended, but they still have to award contracts for the final 3 million premises under their plan. The operator intends to begin a second ATAP phase for this “before the end of the year<\/em>” and at present they claim to be “on track to have substantially completed [their build] by 2025<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Hopefully Cityfibre will be able to offer a more concrete completion date once the final contracts have been awarded, which we suspect will occur sometime later next year (it always takes awhile to thrash out these deals). On top of that it’s worth pointing out that the operator is keen to play a role in the UK Government’s new \u00a35bn project to extend gigabit-capable broadband services into rural areas (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

UPDATE 6th Nov 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

We know that one of the contractors involved in the above announcement is Kier, which has secured deals worth \u00a382m to deploy in Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bath, Weston-Super-Mare and Worcester.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 9th Nov 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

We now have a full list of the contractors.<\/p>\n