- Five new Project Gigabit contracts awarded to CityFibre totalling over £394m.
- Awards will subsidise full fibre rollout to over 202,000 hard to reach homes and businesses across rural Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Kent, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes.
- CityFibre will connect almost 450,000 additional premises on a commercial basis as it optimises its nationwide rollout programme to accommodate Project Gigabit.
- CityFibre has been awarded a total of nine Project Gigabit contracts to date, worth £782m in subsidies and unlocking almost £1.2bn combined public and private investment in rural broadband.
06 February 2024, London: CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, has been awarded five new contracts under the government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme. These will subsidise the rollout of full fibre infrastructure to over 202,000 rural properties in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Kent, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes, that would otherwise be excluded from commercial rollouts.
The five new contracts, awarded under a competitive public procurement process, total over £394m of government subsidy. In line with its strategy, CityFibre will continue to expand and densify its significant existing network footprint in these areas alongside Project Gigabit, extending its rollout to almost 450,000 additional premises across the awarded regions within its 8m rollout programme, bringing the total premises benefiting from the new awards to around 651,000. Detailed planning will begin immediately with the first premises expected to be connected in early 2025.
CityFibre is already delivering Project Gigabit contracts in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Hampshire. Alongside the latest contracts, this represents over £782m in government subsidies and unlocks almost £1.2bn in combined public and private investment in rural broadband.
With Project Gigabit subsidies targeted at locations not addressed by commercial build plans, CityFibre will be the only full fibre network available to those homes and businesses and to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that serve them.
Built using gold-standard XGS-PON technology, capable of supporting speeds of up to 10Gbps, CityFibre’s full fibre network will enable its current and future ISP partners to serve customers with far faster and more reliable broadband services than legacy copper-based networks.
Greg Mesch, Chief Executive Officer at CityFibre, said: “We’re thrilled to be a key delivery partner for the government on this critical infrastructure project, transforming the digital capabilities of rural homes and businesses across the country. But that’s just the start. We’re continuing to expand our commercial rollout alongside Project Gigabit, extending infrastructure choice, multi-gigabit speeds, and unparalleled reliability to hundreds of thousands of additional premises in these regions.”
Data and Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez said: “We’re wasting no time in our mission to bring lightning-fast broadband to rural areas – with a billion pounds in contracts already signed with broadband companies to get our next-generation network up and running.
“Project Gigabit is already driving growth, creating jobs and putting an end to snail’s pace internet speeds, and we will continue to work rapidly to ensure people feel the benefits of our rollout to even more places across the UK as quickly as possible.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
| CityFibre’s latest Project Gigabit contract wins | |||
| Lot | Location | Subsidised Premises | Subsidy Value (£m) |
| 26 | Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire & East Berkshire | 34,000 | £58 |
| 11 | Leicestershire & Warwickshire | 38,000 | £71 |
| 16 & 1 | West & East Sussex | 52,000 | £100 |
| 29 | Kent | 50,000 | £112 |
| 12 | Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes | 25,000 | £51 |
| 202,000 | £394 | ||
| CityFibre’s previously announced Project Gigabit contract wins | |||
| Lot | Location | Subsidised Premises | Subsidy Value (£m) |
| 5 | Cambridgeshire | 45,000 | £69 |
| 2 | Suffolk | 80,000 | £100 |
| 7 | Norfolk | 62,000 | £114 |
| 27 | Hampshire | 76,000 | £104 |
| 262,000 | £387 | ||
NB: All numbers have been rounded for simplicity. Totals are rounded numbers based on actual contract values.
Issued on behalf of CityFibre by Weber Shandwick
Contact: Dyan Owen
Email: cityfibre@webershandwick.com
About CityFibre:
CityFibre is the UK’s largest independent full fibre infrastructure platform, providing carrier-neutral digital infrastructure to its wholesale customers and enabling ultra-fast, reliable and futureproof broadband, ethernet and 5G services to serve homes and businesses as well as schools, hospitals and GPs surgeries.
CityFibre’s full fibre network rollout programme targets up to a third of the UK market, representing up to 8m homes, 800k businesses, 400k local authority sites and 250k 5G access points. CityFibre has already announced 285 cities, towns and villages that will receive a transformational digital upgrade as part of the nationwide rollout.
As the only 100% full fibre wholesale network in the UK, CityFibre is trusted by major Internet Service Providers and mobile operators including TalkTalk, Three, Vodafone and
Zen as well as a new generation of smaller regional ISPs dedicated to delivering full fibre Broadband.
CityFibre is based in London and is owned by funds managed by Antin Infrastructure Partners and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Mubadala Investment Company and Interogo Holding.
Project Gigabit:
Project Gigabit is the government’s flagship £5 billion programme to enable hard-to-reach communities to access lightning-fast gigabit-capable broadband. It targets homes and businesses that are not included in broadband suppliers’ commercial plans, reaching parts of the UK that might otherwise miss out on getting the digital connectivity they need.
BDUK awarded CityFibre a £69 million contract to provide up to 45,000 hard-to-reach premises in Cambridgeshire with access to gigabit-capable broadband.
BDUK awarded CityFibre £318m of UK government funding to provide up to 218,000 homes and businesses across Norfolk, Suffolk and Hampshire with access to gigabit-capable broadband.
By the end of 2025, the government is targeting 85% of the UK to have gigabit-capable connectivity, and then nationwide coverage by 2030.
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