More than 65,000 homes and businesses across Edinburgh can now access the best digital connectivity available thanks to progress made by CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, on the city’s new digital infrastructure rollout.
Edinburgh is one of a growing number of locations in the UK to benefit from CityFibre’s £4bn Gigabit City investment programme which will bring new and better broadband infrastructure within reach of up to 8 million homes and 800,000 businesses nationwide. In Edinburgh alone, CityFibre has invested £100m to make it one of the world’s best digitally connected communities.
This latest milestone adds to a growing list of completed neighbourhoods in Edinburgh, which includes: Currie, Balerno, Granton, Leith, Duddingston, Mountcastle, Newhailles, Liberton, Moredun, Gracemount, Sighthill, South Gyle, Carricknowe, Silverknowes and Barnton areas.
The next areas earmarked for the rollout include Redford, Craiglockhart, Portobello, Wester Hailles, Kingsknowe, Corstorphine, Leith Links, Craigentinny, Piershill, Holyrood, Drylaw and Pilton.
Once the city-wide rollout reaches completion in 2024, almost every home and business locally will have access to full fibre services over CityFibre’s independent network, which will give users a choice of internet service providers (ISPs).
Paul Wakefield, CityFibre’s City Manager for Edinburgh said: “CityFibre has been making great progress in Edinburgh since 2019 and it is fantastic that so many residents can now enjoy the benefits of having access to the fastest and most reliable broadband services available. We are using our state-of-the-art technology to build a brand-new network, ensuring that residents have access to the digital infrastructure needed to support their data needs for generations to come. Once the network goes live in an area the process for accessing it is very straightforward.
“I am delighted that residents connecting to our Edinburgh network already have the choice of three quality ISPs – launch partner Vodafone, plus TalkTalk and Zen, with at least one more to be added before the summer.
“We are continuing to work hard to connect more homes and businesses across the city and I want to thank residents for their patience as we work to bring our state-of-the-art full fibre network to the region.”
Unlike copper-based ‘fibre broadband’ services available today, full fibre networks use 100% fibre optic cables to carry data at lightning speed all the way from the home to the point of connection. This gives users consistently faster speeds for upload and download (up to 1,000 Mbps), near limitless bandwidth so everyone at home can work, study, stream or game simultaneously, while providing connectivity users can depend on.
Construction is being delivered by CityFibre’s build partners Glenevin and IMS Scotland. The teams, who work closely with CityFibre’s own build managers and build assurance engineers, are using a range of construction methods while working in close partnership with Edinburgh City Council and local communities to deliver a fast rollout while minimising potential disruption.
As work is completed in each neighbourhood, ISPs will ‘light up the network’ with some of the fastest and most competitive broadband packages available in terms of both data and price.
Residents interested in giving their home broadband a boost can find out more about the build, pre-register their interest and find out which ISPs are available at https://www.cityfibre.com/.