(Alliance News) - Telecom giant Vodafone Group PLC on Monday said it struck a deal to expand its broadband roll-out with BT Group PLC's unit Openreach.
Vodafone said its Gigafast product, a premium broadband service, will be extended to 15 UK towns and cities, starting with Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool.
The service is currently available in Aberdeen and Stirling, in Scotland, Peterborough in eastern England and the southern English town Milton Keynes. In addition, Gigafast is also live in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, Coventry, West Midlands and English southern seaside town Bournemouth.
The expansion is part of a partnership with BT's Openreach, a division which maintains wiring, cables, and other telecommunications infrastructure.
The company said: "From spring 2020, Vodafone will start making Vodafone Gigafast Broadband available to customers in Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool on the Fibre-to-the-Premises network that Openreach is building. The service will grow as Openreach expands its footprint and will be available to 500,000 premises in these locations by mid-2021 under phase one of this strategic agreement."
The 5G mobile network service is already live at Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool, Vodafone said.
Vodafone said it has made 5G available "in more places than everyone else, with 58 cities across the UK and the rest of Europe now live".
The firm added: "Together, full fibre and 5G form the foundation on which local and central government plan to create digital super towns across the UK."
Vodafone shares were 0.3% lower at 161.70 pence each in London on Monday morning. BT's stock was trading 0.5% higher at 188.09p apiece.
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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