Cityfibre UK Complete Bury St Edmunds FTTP Broadband Build

CityFibre has announced that they’ve completed their “primary build” of a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network in the Suffolk (England) town of Bury St Edmunds. The network is now Ready for Service for over 16,000 homes, which is said to reflect about 81% of homes and most businesses in the town.

The original build – said to be worth £8m (today’s update doesn’t clarify if they kept to that budget) – officially got underway in March 2020 (here) and was initially backed by civil engineering contractor Lite Access. But the rollout ended up taking a longer than envisaged after their contractor went into administration, which meant CityFibre had to appoint a different company to help complete the works.

Since then, CityFibre’s contractors have laid more than 100km of dense full fibre infrastructure across the town. The completion of this network follows on from the delivery of a complementary contract with Suffolk County Council to build a Public Service Network (PSN) connecting more than 600 sites, including council buildings, schools and NHS sites etc.

However, while the primary-build is said to be completed, CityFibre added that they would “continue to explore opportunities to reach further areas including new build properties, those on private or unadopted roads and business parks.”

Neil Madle, Partnership Manager at CityFibre, said:

“Today marks a new chapter for Bury St Edmunds as it becomes one of the best-connected places in the country.

The completion of our primary-build in the town means thousands of residents and businesses can now access full fibre broadband services and enjoy lightning fast and reliable connectivity. This will have far-reaching economic benefits for the local community as our new full fibre infrastructure boosts innovation and productivity.

I would like to thank everyone for their support and patience over the last three years as we worked our way across the town. Now residents and businesses can reap the rewards of the work. There are a wide range of packages available through Internet Service Providers on the CityFibre network, which can be found by using the postcode checker on our website.”

The work supports CityFibre’s wider ambition of covering up to 8 million UK premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity and c.£4.9bn debt) – across over 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here). The operator has already passed over 3.5 million premises (3.2m as Ready for Service) and they aim to add another million during 2024.

In terms of gigabit-capable competitors, CityFibre’s main competition in the town comes from Openreach’s rival FTTP network that is also widely available. Hyperoptic and some smaller networks also have some patchy full fibre coverage, but nothing too significant.