Vodafone is expanding its Gigafast Broadband roll-out after striking a new commercial deal with network infrastructure provider Openreach.
From spring 2020, Vodafone will start making Vodafone Gigafast Broadband available to customers in Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool on the Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network that Openreach is building.
Vodafone uses the term Gigafast Broadband to promote a range of packages it offers using Cityfibre’s new FTTH network, which is being rolled to cover 5 million premises across 37 UK cities and towns by the end of 2024.
Earlier this year, Virgin Media successfully lobbied the UK Advertising Standards Authority to stop Vodafone using ‘Gigafast’ to describe slower offers with data rates of 100Mbps to 900Mbps (that is, sub-1Gbps).
The service will grow as Openreach expands its footprint and will be available to 500,000 premises in these locations by mid-2021 under phase one of this strategic agreement with Openreach. The agreement includes the option for further phases that could extend coverage to other places.
With the addition of Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool, Vodafone Gigafast Broadband is currently live or planned in 15 cities or towns. Vodafone has previously announced 12 other fibre roll-outs under its agreement with alternative wholesale fibre network infrastructure provider CityFibre. So far, Vodafone Gigafast Broadband has already gone live in Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Coventry, Huddersfield, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Stirling.
Commitment to CityFibre
Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK Chief Executive Officer, said, “Vodafone is committed to a full-fibre future and to creating the infrastructure Britain needs to compete and win in the digital era. This initiative with Openreach builds on our existing commitments with CityFibre and underlines our belief in the power of digital technology to connect people for a better future and unlock economic growth for the UK.”
Clive Selley, Openreach Chief Executive, commented, “Our full-fibre broadband network already covers more than 1.9 million premises in the UK, and Openreach engineers are building it to another home or business every 26 seconds. We’re keen to upgrade customers as quickly as possible to this new, ultrafast, future-proof platform, so we’re proud that Vodafone’s placing its confidence in Openreach to deliver a great broadband experience for their customers.
“We’re determined to be the partner of choice for all communications providers and we’ll do that by offering the best connectivity and service with the widest possible coverage throughout the country.”