City Fibre Holdings Reveals Truly Ambitious Buildout Plans

Over in the UK, upstart metro fiber operator City Fibre Holdings shook the foundations of the national fiber scene yesterday. They appointed Macquarie Capital as an advisor to help it raise the capital for a truly major fiber buildout. They intend to invest £500M ($800M) in both new metro fiber networks and fiber-to-the-premises city-wide in markets across the country.

City Fibre Holdings only recently came upon the scene in the UK, picking up the assets of H20, Fibercity, and Opencity. That gave them metro assets in 7 markets plus a troubled FTTH deployment in Bournemouth that they have been putting back on track. The UK has been a tough place to play when it comes to fiber buildouts lately, and lately there’s been more talk than action.

Their new, very aggressive plan could connect as many as a million homes and 50,000 businesses. Their own effort would be on the wholesale side, with an open access market structure aimed at empowering other service providers rather than doing everything solo.

First, though, they’re going to have to actually raise all that money in a Europe that isn’t exactly exuding confidence these days.  I hope they succeed.

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Categories: FTTH · Metro fiber