British pure fibre provider CityFibre has announced a GBP1.5 billion (USD1.9 billion) investment, awarding construction contracts for full fibre rollouts across 27 towns and cities, addressing approximately three million premises. Announcing the development, the operator said that the conclusion of the first phase of its Accelerated Tender Awards Programme (ATAP) brings the total value of its awarded build contracts to GBP2.5 billion. With 26 build partners now under contract, CityFibre noted that its construction supply chain is now secured for rollouts targeting more than five million premises in 66 towns and cities. Mobilisation of its new partners and projects is now underway, and all of the operator’s projects are scheduled to be in build by summer 2021.
Meanwhile, before the end of 2020 CityFibre has said it intends to launch the second phase of the ATAP through which it will award build contracts for as many as three million additional premises. Doing so, it claims, will ‘commit construction resource across the entirety of its up to eight million Gigabit City Investment Programme target, which it is on track to have substantially completed by 2025’.
Greg Mesch, CEO at CityFibre, said of the latest contract awards: ‘By awarding these full fibre network construction contracts, we can ensure we have the construction resources we need to get the job done, bringing world-class digital infrastructure a step closer to millions across the UK.’