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Gigaclear to use to CityFibre’s metro, long-distance fibre infrastructure to extend ultrafast broadband into hard-to-reach areas.
CiytFibre and Gigaclear late last week established a partnership aimed at expanding rural ultrafast broadband coverage.
Under the agreement, Gigaclear will use CityFibre’s long-distance fibre network as a new backhaul option for future network deployments. Gigaclear will also use CityFibre’s metro networks and points of presence (PoPs) in order to facilitate fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) rollout in nearby rural areas.
"Bringing brilliant broadband to rural Britain has its challenges. This partnership with CityFibre gives Gigaclear access to more capacity, faster delivery and more flexible bandwidth across the country," said Gigaclear CEO Matthew Hare, in a statement on Friday. "It helps us build Gigabit networks where other operators do not reach, to meet the demand for better broadband from homes and businesses."
CityFibre and Gigaclear are two of the U.K.’s most aggressive alternative network providers. The former provides an ultrafast alternative to BT’s fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) and point-to-point Ethernet networks in larger towns and cities, while the latter deploys FTTP in unserved, rural locations where there is strong demand for ultrafast broadband.
Gigaclear in April received an equity investment of £24 million (€28.6 million), which will help to accelerate its FTTP rollout. In January, the company received a €25 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB), also for the purposes of funding its network.
Meanwhile, CityFibre has been expanding its Gigabit City programme following its acquisition of Kcom’s national network assets.
It has a medium-term target of establishing a dense network presence in 50 towns and cities with an addressable market of 35,000 public sector sites, 10,000 cell sites, 350,000 businesses, and 5 million homes.
"We are delighted to formalise a partnership with Gigaclear which shares such a complementary agenda," said CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch, on Friday. "We have long been aware of the huge levels of demand for better Internet connectivity in rural areas surrounding our urban network projects. It is a national embarrassment that residents and businesses in rural areas, and indeed many of those in towns and cities, have been left in the digital dark ages."
