CityFibre expands strategic alliance with Bechtel to support continued acceleration of its rollout

• Bechtel partnership extended after supporting a huge ramp up in CityFibre’s nationwide Full Fibre rollout in last 12 months.
• Deeper alliance secures Bechtel’s support for CityFibre’s full rollout ambitions to 8m homes.
• Partnership underpins potential participation in Building Digital UK’s Project Gigabit programme.

London: CityFibre, the UK’s largest alternative provider of wholesale fibre infrastructure has significantly extended and expanded its partnership with Bechtel, one of the world’s leading engineering, construction, and project management companies, to support the continued acceleration of its rollout to approximately one third of the UK market, by 2025.

Bechtel’s teams have been fully integrated into CityFibre’s organisational structure since September 2020, enabling CityFibre to accelerate the mobilisation of its 25 network construction partners and manage more than 60 parallel full town and city builds. Bechtel has also helped to strengthen project controls to enhance operational management, establish controls around risk and change, and increase productivity.

The new agreement formalises a five-year extension to the partnership and will fully leverage Bechtel’s mega-project expertise in project controls, construction management, contracts management, and environment, safety and health. Bechtel will focus its leadership and construction management efforts in CityFibre’s north and southeast regions, areas with the greatest density of parallel builds. It will also continue to provide functional support across all regions as well as developing resource models to ensure thousands more operatives are trained and available to build partners to help construct the network.

The alliance will help ensure CityFibre’s rollout continues to scale at pace, in line with its plans, while also ensuring unrivalled quality of network construction. By the end of 2022, CityFibre expects to have more than 150 parallel full city, town and village builds underway. By the end of 2025 the rollout will reach approximately 285 locations and address up to 8m homes.

Bechtel’s scalable resourcing capabilities will also support CityFibre’s potential participation in Building Digital UK’s ‘Project Gigabit’ programme to bring Full Fibre to rural areas across the UK.

Greg Mesch, CEO at CityFibre said: “It’s a pleasure to be extending our alliance with Bechtel after a hugely successful year as partners. Over the last twelve months, they have worked in lockstep with our teams to deliver an extraordinary acceleration of our rollout. This pace will only increase as we commence new projects and maximise the productivity of each build. We’re delighted that Bechtel, with their unparalleled experience of complex, scaled construction projects, will be working alongside us in the years ahead as we continue to build the UK’s finest Full Fibre infrastructure platform”

John Williams, Bechtel’s UK & Ireland Infrastructure Managing Director, said: “We’re really proud of what we have achieved with CityFibre in only a year. This new alliance will deepen our partnership, help sustain CityFibre’s incredible growth trajectory and help future-proof the nation’s digital infrastructure for communities across the UK.”