CityFibre wins contract to build FTTP to 45,000 Cambridgeshire properties

Project Gigabit has seen its latest contract signed with £69 million of tax payer money combining with £53 million of investment from CityFibre to bring full fibre (Gigabit capable) broadband to parts of Cambridgeshire that were going to miss out on the commercial roll-outs.

The Government announcement suggests the roll out will benefit villages and hamlets around Ely, Newmarket, Royston, Huntingdon along with other areas. The contract is set to benefit around 45,000 premises which works out at £2,711 per property (contract total of £122 million) – this is significantly more money than CityFibre spends on its urban roll-out per property reflecting the spread-out nature of the contract area.

Thanks to our record-breaking roll out Project Gigabit, rural homes and businesses across Cambridgeshire can be confident they won’t be left behind in the upgrade to top-of-the-range gigabit broadband.

This landmark deal with CityFibre will help deliver the Prime Minister’s priority to grow the economy by ensuring the county’s pioneering science and tech industries can unleash their full potential with lightning-quick connectivity, whether in the city or the countryside.

Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez

In terms of the record-breaking this is likely referring to the Government saying Project Gigabit is the biggest broadband roll out in British history, but that is open to question since in terms of properties the number is a lot smaller than the commercial roll-outs and to date only £1.2 billion of the £5 billion often talked about has been allocated by the Exchequer. The majority of the money spent, rather than just allocated has gone on Gigabit broadband vouchers to date and the number used is under 100,000. There is £160 million of value in contracts signed under Project Gigabit to date and lots more are expected in 2023/2024.

The commercial roll-outs of full fibre mean that if the pace of the last nine months is maintained we should be reporting 85% Gigabit coverage in July 2024 and a more robust full fibre coverage of 85% in June 2026. An example of the speed of change is evidenced by the press release using our 15th February 2023 Gigabit figure of 73.5% which has risen to 74.7% as of 21st March 2023. Of course it is possible operators might slow down their building as they finish all the easy urban areas. 

Back to the Cambridgeshire contract and the first premises should start to go live in early 2024 and apparently planning has already started, suggesting that CityFibre as with other Project Gigabit contracts have known they had won the contract ahead of the news being made public.

Some may wonder why a provider who name implies a city focus is winning rural contracts, part of this is likely the large existing presence in places like Cambridge, Peterborough and March. Plus other urban areas like Bury St Edmunds, Norwich and Ipswich which while outside Cambridgeshire mean most of Cambridgeshire is relatively close to some CityFibre infrastructure.

In terms of the impact on Cambridgeshire, 45,000 premises gaining FTTP is around 11% of the combined footprint for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. In the last 12 months, the commercial roll-outs have added 13.4 points of FTTP coverage and if CityFibre roll-out in the ideal locations the 7,000 to 9,000 premises without access to superfast speeds  today will be very happy.

After BT winning the vast majority of BDUK contracts during the superfast era it is refreshing to see a wide variety of broadband companies winning contracts now. Whether this is down to BT Openreach focussing on its commercial roll-outs and contracts like R100 in Scotland and not bidding aggressively or a preference for alt-net operators in the corridors of Westminster is something that will only time will tell.