Second phase of rollouts extends CityFibre’s Gigabit City programme by a further million homes. Now totals over 2m homes across 26 towns and cities.

Ahead of the appointment of a new Prime Minister, who is expected to prioritise the accelerated delivery of full fibre infrastructure across the UK, CityFibre, the leading alternative provider of wholesale full fibre infrastructure, has today confirmed 14 further towns and cities are being planned and mobilised for full fibre deployment. They are set to join its ‘Gigabit City Club’, alongside the 12 cities already announced, and form the next phase in CityFibre’s £2.5bn investment plan to bring competitive full fibre infrastructure to at least five million homes, more than 20% of the UK market.

The cities announced are Batley, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Doncaster, Inverness, Ipswich, Leicester, Lowestoft, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Rotherham, Slough, Swindon and Worthing. CityFibre will continue to work closely with each local authority to facilitate and accelerate the rollouts and to determine the sequence of towns and cities deployed. On completion, the total economic impact of full fibre in these locations alone could exceed £16.3bn, creating over 115,000 indirect jobs.

CityFibre has commenced network design and is already investing in each location, extending its existing full fibre spine infrastructure serving schools, hospitals and council offices, to reach nearly every home and business. Each Gigabit City design will include enough fibre capacity to serve the bandwidth demands of all market verticals far into the future. The networks, which are designed to be ready for 5G small cell densification, also provide a platform to realise Smart City ambitions.

This announcement adds over one million homes and businesses to the million already covered by the 12 Gigabit Cities previously announced. Construction is now underway in ten of those cities, and in five of them gigabit-capable broadband services are live and on sale to customers.

With thousands of construction engineers and operatives required to roll out its networks at pace, CityFibre is investing in resourcing programmes and training centres as well as working closely with government to ensure its contractors have the necessary workforce to support this acceleration. CityFibre estimates that over 3,250 construction jobs will be created in its deployment to the two million homes identified so far.

CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch said:

“CityFibre’s sole purpose is to deliver the future-proof digital infrastructure the UK deserves. With a new Prime Minister set to increase government’s ambitions for the pace of full fibre rollout, we are delighted to welcome another 14 towns and cities to our Gigabit City Club. These Gigabit Cities will not only gain new full fibre networks that will spark their digital transformation, but also unleash the benefits that only competitive infrastructure investment can bring. **

“Our rollout to five million homes is gathering momentum. We have now confirmed 26 locations and over two million homes in our programme. We are investing, we are building, and we are connecting customers to networks of the future.”