CityFibre lights up Luton with gigabit broadband

In January 2022, CityFibre began the year by breaking ground on a £5m infrastructure roll-out in the area of March in Cambridgeshire, and now, after a whirlwind 12 months where deployments and activations seem to have occurred every week, the gigabit independent broadband infrastructure provider has ended the year by almost going full circle to the neighbouring county of Bedfordshire to offer full-fibre access to homes and businesses in the Luton area.

In all, CityFibre is investing £45m to make Luton and Dunstable among the UK’s best digitally connected communities. The latest milestone includes premises in Stopsley, Wigmore, Round Green and Crawley, where residents can access broadband services from UK launch partner Vodafone, on selected Vodafone Pro Broadband, as well as a range of other internet service providers, including Giganet, Air Broadband, Zybre, Yazi, No-one, IDNet, A&A, Octaplus, Link Broadband and Facto.

As part of the network roll-out, CityFibre will be working closely with Luton Council to carry out pre-works and exploratory surveying in the town centre. These works will help survey the future of the build and ensure minimum impact on residents and businesses moving into 2023. The build will continue across the town throughout 2023, with Dunstable’s roll-out scheduled to get underway early next year. Construction is being carried out on behalf of CityFibre by Instalcom.

As it was announcing the Luton project, CityFibre also revealed the extent to which its Cambridge estate has grown since January. The company has now laid 170km of fibre connectivity through the university city as part of its £26m plan to future-proof Cambridge’s digital connectivity. This represents enough full-fibre cabling to cross the iconic Mathematical Bridge at Queen’s College in Cambridge 11,300 times, or to reach the top of the 36-metre tall Observation Wheel at Parker’s Piece more than 4,700 times.

Gigabit broadband services are available from launch partner Vodafone, on selected Vodafone Pro Broadband Plans, while TalkTalk, Giganet, Zen, Air Broadband, Zybre, Yayzi, No One, IDNet, Andrews & Arnold, Octaplus, FACTco, and Link Broadband are also available in parts of the city.

Granemore is installing the full-fibre network on CityFibre’s behalf, with works currently ongoing in the Newnham, Trumpington and Castle wards. Work has already been completed across large sections of the city, including Chesterton, Romsey, Petersfield, Coleridge, Queen Edith’s, Kings Hedges, Abbey ward and Cherry Hinton.

Cambridge is one of the locations in the UK under CityFibre’s nationwide Gigabit City Investment Programme that will bring new and improved broadband infrastructure within reach of up to eight million homes and businesses nationwide.