The deal, worth £3.24 million over 10 years with capex coverage at the upper end of CityFibre’s guidance range, will provide scalable, ultra-fast connectivity to underpin the Council’s ambitious digital strategy and will make Southend CityFibre’s latest Gigabit City.
The new network will provide the Council with a dark fibre platform from which they can upgrade the existing connectivity provided to sites including schools, colleges and council offices. Many of these key sites are currently served by legacy BT Openreach connections, frequently delivered over out-dated copper wires. These sites will be migrated to the new network as it is built, providing them with ultra-fast, pure fibre services.
This new infrastructure will enable the Council to deliver cost-effective and efficient digital public sector services in addition to fostering business growth and inward investment. Mobile masts can be connected to the network to enable upgrades to 4G and 5G services, next generation services will be able to support Southend’s 6,000 businesses, and ultimately the network can provide a backbone for Fibre-to-the-Home deployment. These ultra-fast services are vastly superior to those endured by many businesses across the country and will provide them with a huge competitive advantage.
Greg Mesch, Chief Executive of CityFibre, commented: “We’re delighted to add Southend to the growing ranks of Gigabit City projects, further endorsing our belief that significant demand exists for our services across the UK. Southend demonstrates many of the key indicators of success. It has a forward thinking Council with an ambitious digital strategy and the appetite to become a leading example of a smart city, while its business community is growing and is increasingly demanding best-in-breed connectivity options.”