Fiber partnership between Vodafone and CityFibre targets 5 million homes and business by 2025
You can’t have wireless without wires–a telecom paradigm illustrated by Vodafone’s partnership with CityFibre to significantly expand the reach of fiber-to-the-premises connectivity in the U.K. over the next eight years.
The partners described the investment plan as serving to “bridge Britain’s fiber gap” and support the U.K. government’s goal of connecting fiber to 10 million residences, schools, hospitals, businesses, hospitals and other locations. The fiber footprint can also be leveraged to provide backhaul for 5G as it’s commercialized.
At a high-level, CityFibre will own and operate the network and Vodafone will have an exclusivity timeframe to provide consumer-facing services. Construction is planned to kick-off with one million premise connections between 2018 and 2021.
Vodafone U.K. Chief Executive Nick Jeffrey said the investment supports the service provider’s vision of a “gigabit society. The U.K. has fallen far behind the rest of the world, trapped by the limited choice available on legacy networks. We look forward to working with CityFibre to build the gigabit fiber network the U.K. needs and deserves.”
Over in Germany, Vodafone plans to invest more than $2 billion in incremental capex between now and 2021 to provide 13.7 million new gigabit connections based on fiber-to-the-premises, passive, city-owned networks and upgrades to its existing cable infrastructure for compliance with the DOCSIS 3.1 standard.
