CityFibre

Bringing full fibre infrastructure to five million homes

Antin Infrastructure Partners & Goldman Sachs‘s partnership to provide full fibre infrastructure to 8 million homes and businesses across the UK by 2025.

Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goals

5 million homes

with access to full-fibre by 2025

26 towns

across the UK to benefit

£4 billion

investment programme

“The UK is a service-based economy, and this runs best on full fibre. Ensuring national coverage is critical and this can only be achieved by driving infrastructure competition at scale.”

Greg Mesch, CEO, CityFibre

In July 2019 CityFibre confirmed 14 further towns and cities that are being planned and mobilised for full fibre deployment. They join the 12 cities already announced and form the next phase in CityFibre’s £4bn investment programme to allow homes and businesses to connect and communicate at high speeds.

The gigabit cities are Aberdeen, Adur-Worthing, Batley, Bournemouth, Bradford, Cambridge, Coventry, Derby, Dewsbury, Doncaster, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Inverness, Ipswich, Leeds, Leicester, Lowestoft, Milton Keynes, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Peterborough, Rotherham, Slough, Southend on Sea, Stirling, and Swindon. The 26 towns and cities cover 2 million homes.

Situation
The UK telecoms market has lacked competition and innovation, stifling the rollout of full fibre coverage and leaving the UK with just 4% full fibre coverage (as of 2018), compared to the 80% coverage in similarly sized economies.

CityFibre has emerged as the UK’s leading alternative provider of wholesale full fibre infrastructure with a strategic aim to reach 20% of the market by 2025.

Action
In October 2018, CityFibre announced a new £2.5bn full fibre investment plan to bring infrastructure to at least 5 million homes. CityFibre identified 37 towns and cities for expansion for fibre to the home (FTTH)

Between year-end 2017 to year end 2018, total group network assets increased from 3,740km to 9,932km, with strategy for 2019 focused on delivering commitments to Vodafone under the joint FTTH project.

Financing Model
April 2018, £538m takeover of CityFibre by Antin and Goldman Sachs-backed consortium owned by West Street Infrastructure Partners.

Benefits to the country

The full fibre investment plan corresponds to 1/3 of the Government’s 2025 target of 15 million homes and helps to deliver Ofcom’s requirement for increased infrastructure competition
More than 6,500km of fibre optic cables which supports regional economic growth, particularly in the north of England.

Benefits to communities

The partnership with Vodafone has already brought gigabit speeds to customers across 5 cities, with further city-wide builds in construction.
4 key areas of CSR have been addressed by CityFibre, including employees volunteering with homeless charity SWAT, engaging with sports events such as ‘Manchester Resolution Run’ and raising money for charities

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