Vodafone and alternative fibre infrastructure provider CityFibre have teamed up to bring ultrafast fibre broadband to up to five million homes and businesses by 2025.
The long-term strategic partnership has been described as one of the most significant developments in UK telecoms since the launch of ADSL broadband around 17 years ago.
It will help to bridge Britain’s fibre gap by delivering fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure and connections capable of gigabit speeds (1,000 mbps).
“This agreement will unlock the UK’s full fibre future and is a major step forward in delivering our vision for a Gigabit Britain,” said CityFibre chief executive Greg Mesch.
“With this commitment from Vodafone, we have a partner with whom we can transform the digital capabilities of millions of homes and businesses and establish an unassailable wholesale infrastructure position across 20 per cent of the UK broadband market.”
Vodafone UK chief executive Nick Jeffery added: “Vodafone is already playing the leading role in building the Gigabit Society across Europe by providing customers with high-speed, high-quality broadband.
“The UK has fallen far behind the rest of the world, trapped by the limited choice available on legacy networks. We look forward to working with CityFibre to build the Gigabit fibre network that the UK needs and deserves.”
Under the agreement, Vodafone will have a period of exclusive rights to market ultrafast consumer broadband services on the FTTP network to be built, operated and owned by CityFibre.
Construction of the first phase of deployment to one million premises is due to start in the first half of 2018 and will be largely complete in 2021.
Both parties have the right to extend the commercial terms of this agreement to expand coverage to a further four million homes and businesses by 2025.