{"id":34901,"date":"2023-07-01T07:21:29","date_gmt":"2023-07-01T06:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=34901"},"modified":"2023-07-01T10:20:51","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T09:20:51","slug":"cityfibre-win-three-major-uk-project-gigabit-broadband-rollout-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/07\/cityfibre-win-three-major-uk-project-gigabit-broadband-rollout-contracts.html","title":{"rendered":"CityFibre Win Three Major UK Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK Government’s \u00a35bn Project Gigabit<\/a> broadband rollout scheme has announced that CityFibre<\/a> have secured three major build contracts for Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk in England. The combined award is worth \u00a3488m (\u00a3318m state aid and \u00a3170m private) and will see the operator extend 10Gbps capable FTTP<\/a> to 218,000 premises (500k inc. commercial build).<\/p>\n

The operator, which is supported by ISPs like Vodafone<\/a>, TalkTalk<\/a>, Giganet and more, already covers 2.8 million UK premises (2.4m RFS) with full fibre – mostly in urban areas – and their ambition is to cover up to 8m (funded by c.\u00a32.4bn in equity and c.\u00a34.9bn debt) – across over 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here<\/a>). But they also previously secured the Project Gigabit<\/strong> contract for Cambridgeshire (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> 76.22% of UK premises can already access a gigabit speeds (53% via just FTTP<\/a>) – detail<\/a>.<\/div>\n

By comparison, Project Gigabit aims to extend 1Gbps capable (download) networks to reach at least 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025, before hopefully achieving \u201cnationwide<\/em>\u201d coverage (c. 99%) by around 2030 (here<\/a>). Commercial investment is expected to deliver more than 80% of this, which leaves the government\u2019s scheme to focus on tackling the final 20% (mostly rural and some sub-urban areas), where the private sector alone often fails. The project is technology neutral, so it can be delivered via either \u201cfull fibre<\/em>\u201d FTTP<\/a>, Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) or fixed wireless access (e.g. 5G<\/a>) – but FTTP is strongly favoured.<\/p>\n

The project uses a number of different approaches to tackle this challenge (e.g. vouches and investment in dark fibre builds), but the largest part of the scheme involves a gap-funded subsidy approach – the Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy<\/strong> (GIS). This is where smaller local or larger regional contracts are awarded to network operators and ISPs who can help to build their gigabit-capable infrastructure across the final 20%.<\/p>\n

The Building Digital UK<\/a> (BDUK) agency, which manages Project Gigabit, has already awarded a string of initial rollout contracts to various operators (see bottom of article for a summary) and today’s news adds another three, all of which have gone to CityFibre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Norfolk contract (Lot 7)<\/span>
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