LONDON (Alliance News) - CityFibre Infrastructure Holdings PLC Friday said it has partnered with Gigaclear, a provider of pure fibre broadband, to speed up the roll-out of next generation ultrafast internet access to rural areas and said it has also secured a new and separate GBP2.0 million contract with FTSE 2500-listed partner Serco Group PLC.
CityFibre, which operates fibre optic infrastructure in UK towns and cities, said the partnership with Gigaclear would accelerate the roll-out of faster internet access to "hundreds of thousands of rural homes and businesses across the UK."
The company said it plans to use its extensive metro fibre networks in 37 towns and cities to assist Gigaclear's deployment of rural pure fibre networks. CityFibre's long distance network will provide a new backhaul option for future Gigaclear deployments, while its metro networks and POP facilities will facilitate connectivity to nearby rural areas.
"We are delighted to formalise a partnership with Gigaclear, which shares such a complementary agenda. We have long been aware of the huge levels of demand for better internet connectivity in rural areas surrounding our urban network projects," said Chief Executive Greg Mesch.
"It is a national embarrassment that residents and businesses in rural areas, and indeed many of those in towns and cities, have been left in the digital dark ages," he added.
Separately, CityFibre said it has also secured a GBP2.0 million contract in Peterborough from its outsourcing partner Serco. The 20-year deal covers the connection of an additional 220 locations in Peterborough, comprising high definition CCTV and urban traffic control sites.
CityFibre will extend its existing 90 kilometre Peterborough network by a further 24 kilometres, with contractual capital expenditure coverage in line with the company's guidance range, CityFibre said.
"The agreement underlines the growing demand amongst public sector bodies for HD CCTV and urban traffic control cameras with high capacity fibre connections. The network architecture to be deployed in the Peterborough project extends CityFibre's dense multi-ducted metro fibre network to street furniture throughout the city, laying the critical foundation for future 4G and 5G small cell deployments," CityFibre said.
As with the original Peterborough anchor contract with Serco, signed in November 2013, payment for the contract is received over the term of construction, in exchange for which CityFibre grants Serco a right of use of the additional network.
Overall, the deal Friday pushes up the cumulative contract revenue from Peterborough to GBP8.5 million.
"We're very pleased to expand our successful partnership with Serco in providing future-proof, pure fibre connectivity to another critical part of the public sector estate in Peterborough. This deal validates the incremental demand we see from public sector bodies looking to fully leverage all the benefits a dedicated fibre network can bring to a city," said Mesch.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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