Cityfibre has confirmed that they intend to invest £22m in order to deploy a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network across the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset (England), with the build itself starting in January 2021.
The work forms part of the operator’s wider £4bn investment programme (here and here), which currently aims to cover around 1 million premises by the end of 2021 and then 8 million across 100+ cities and towns (c.30% of the UK) – the latter target is expected to be “substantially completed” by the end of 2025.
The contracted civil engineering firm for the project, Kier Group, has already begun detailed planning in the area, ahead of the rollout getting under way next month. As usual the aim will be to reach “nearly every home and business” in the town (they usually target 85%+ FTTP coverage).
Kathryn Askew Smith, Cityfibre’s Local City Manager, said:
“This year, we’ve all come to appreciate the importance of fast, reliable broadband and CityFibre’s investment in the town will play a crucial role in growing and protecting the local economy. Fast and reliable fibre connections will make the town an even more desirable place to visit, live and work as our requirement for robust connectivity is only set to increase.”
Cityfibre’s new network will however face some local competition from gigabit-capable rivals, particularly from Virgin Media, which has been busy extending their own FTTP build across a large part of the town. Openreach also have some moderate full fibre coverage in the area and there are a few tiny patches from OFNL too. Meanwhile Gigaclear and Truespeed are both nearby, but neither appear to have entered the town itself.