London: CityFibre, the UK’s third national digital infrastructure platform, has been awarded a multi- million-pound contract by Three to connect an additional 1,300 key mobile masts across 59 towns and cities.

Full Fibre backhaul is an essential part of delivering a great mobile experience, so partnering with CityFibre is part of Three’s strategy to deliver the UK’s fastest 5G network thanks to its leading 5G spectrum portfolio. 

Under an agreement announced earlier this year, CityFibre became a preferred provider of backhaul connectivity outside London for Three and has already supported the rollout of 5G at more than 100 locations across the country. This latest deal will more than triple Three’s initial commitment and will see CityFibre’s Full Fibre infrastructure continue to underpin its national 5G rollout.

The deepening partnership sees Three and CityFibre further align on their rollout plans. This will help to increase the speed and efficiency of each deployment, providing a high quality 5G service across CityFibre’s Gigabit City projects and delivering an improved network experience for Three’s customers.

The partnership will also mean Three has access to small cell access points throughout each of CityFibre’s dense city-wide networks. This will ensure it has the local Full Fibre capacity in place to support the expected heavy demand of 5G services in busy urban areas, meaning a seamless service for customers. Most of the locations identified for Three’s 5G rollout are well progressed and CityFibre is ramping up delivery ahead of the end of 2020.

Susan Buttsworth, COO at Three UK said: “We are increasing investment across our network to meet the ever increasing demand for data by UK consumers. Fibre backhaul is a vital part of a reliable network experience and this investment will mean better connectivity for our customers across the UK.”

Greg Mesch, CEO at CityFibre, said: “We are excited to deepen our support for Three’s ambitious 5G rollout. It’s clear that the alignment of two national consumer and mobile digital infrastructure rollouts has huge benefits, not just for us, but for the cities and communities we are connecting. Working together we can deploy 5G and Full Fibre further and more efficiently, creating a word class digital infrastructure that allows agile and distributed applications for millions.”