Three UK has awarded a multi-million-pound backhaul contract to CityFibre, the UK’s largest alternative provider of full-fibre infrastructure.
Founded in 2012, CityFibre has expanded rapidly, running network projects in more than 60 towns and cities with plans to reach eight million homes across the country.
Under the new agreement, CityFibre will provide backhaul connectivity to an additional 1,300 key mobile sites across 59 towns and cities, supporting Three’s wider network ambitions.
Greg Mesch, Chief Executive Officer at CityFibre, commented:
“We are pleased to deepen our support for Three’s ambitious 5G rollout. Aligning national consumer and mobile infrastructure projects brings significant benefits not only to our businesses but also to the cities and communities we serve.
By working together, we can deliver 5G and full-fibre more efficiently, creating world-class digital infrastructure that enables agile, distributed applications for millions of users.”
Three’s 5G deployment has lagged behind market leaders EE and Vodafone, but recent progress indicates the operator is gaining momentum.
Independent testing from RootMetrics shows that where Three’s 5G is available it performs strongly. Three recorded the fastest median 5G speeds among UK operators at 193.7 Mbps, though availability in individual cities remains limited — the highest city-level availability recorded was 15.4 percent in Birmingham.
Three’s customer base is known for heavy data usage. Last year the operator reported that its customers averaged more than 10 GB of data per month, significantly higher than the UK average of 2.9 GB reported by Ofcom.
The expanded CityFibre backhaul contract aims to meet those growing data demands by delivering the fast, reliable capacity Three’s customers expect.
Susan Buttsworth, Chief Operating Officer at Three UK, said:
“We are increasing investment across our network to meet the ever-growing demand for data from UK consumers.
Fibre backhaul is a crucial component of a dependable network experience, and this investment will bring improved connectivity for our customers across the UK.”
Earlier this year CityFibre and Three reached a smaller agreement under which CityFibre became Three’s preferred backhaul supplier outside London, supporting the operator’s 5G rollout in more than 100 locations. The success of that partnership appears to have led to this much larger commitment, which more than triples Three’s initial order.
The strengthened partnership delivers mutual benefits: Three’s 5G coverage will support CityFibre’s Gigabit City projects by enabling high-capacity mobile services, while Three’s customers will gain from the increased reliability and performance that full-fibre backhaul provides, particularly in dense urban environments.
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