CityFibre has snapped up TalkTalk's fibre network as it looks to bring ultra-fast connections to users across the country.
The company has acquired the high-speed FibreNation network in a £200 million deal, making CityFibre as the UK’s third national digital infrastructure platform.
The deal will allow CityFibre to reach up to eight million premises across the UK, and should create up to 7,000 new construction jobs.
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“This agreement is good news for TalkTalk and good news for Britain’s fibre roll-out," said Tristia Harrison, Chief Executive of TalkTalk.
"Our investment over the last five years and the excellent work delivered by the FibreNation team, combined with CityFibre’s well-established platform, will support wide-geographical reach of full fibre and further drive competition and customer take-up in the market.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to deliver full fibre connectivity to the entire of the UK by 2025, and CityFibre, which is owned by Goldman Sachs, has been on a signficiant investment drive to build its network across the UK.
In October 2018, the company declared it would be invest £2.5 billion to bring fibre to the premise (FTTP) infrastructure to five million homes across the UK, giving Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile operators an alternative wholesale network for consumer broadband and backhaul services.
“Digital connectivity has the power to transform our country into a nation of smart, connected towns and cities, boosting and levelling up our economy," said Greg Mesch, Chief Executive at CityFibre.
“Today’s announcement establishes CityFibre as the UK’s third national digital infrastructure platform allowing millions more consumers and businesses to benefit from access to faster, more reliable services.
“The UK is a service-based economy, and this runs best on full fibre. Ensuring national coverage is critical and this can only be achieved by driving infrastructure competition at scale. This deal demonstrates the appetite from industry to see it established.”
CityFibre also revealed a new agreement with Vodafone which will allow the company to accelerate the onboarding of other consumer ISPs to its networks much sooner than originally. Vodafone Gigafast Broadband service is already available in 11 towns and cities.
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