(ShareCast News) - CityFibre announced a new partner agreement on Wednesday, signing a deal with Berkshire-based ICT solutions provider Between the Lines Communications (BtL).The AIM-traded firm said the five-year, £3.1m agreement commits BtL to a minimum of 250 customer connections across the Reading and Bracknell networks that CityFibre acquired on 18 January.Its board said it was the seventh contract signed on the acquired assets in under five months, with CityFibre now having signed agreements to bring seven of the 21 acquired city markets into commercialisation in line with its strategy.The additional contracts signed to date cover 1,200 customer connections and £18.8m in initial contract value.CityFibre's board added that the contracted revenue coverage of incremental capex associated with the new business in Reading and Bracknell is at the upper end of its guidance range."We're very pleased to welcome BtL as our 48th service provider partner in opening up a further two cities on our acquired footprint," said CityFibre chief executive Greg Mesch."We continue to make good progress in the commercialisation of our expanded asset base.Mesch said to put it in perspective, the 1,200 connections sold on the acquired assets in the first five months since deal completion are equal to its entire installed customer base at the end of 2015, with the contract value of nearly £19m equating to 81% of all new business written in 2015."This demonstrates the ongoing strong demand for alternative wholesale fibre infrastructure in cities outside of London, where we are the sole alternative to Openreach."
