From spring 2020, Vodafone will make its Gigafast Broadband available to customers in Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool on the Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network that Openreach is building. The service will continue to 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.
“Vodafone is committed to a full fibre future and to creating the infrastructure Britain needs to compete and win in the digital era,” said Nick Jeffery (pictured), chief executive officer, Vodafone UK. “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.”
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 CityFibre. To date, Vodafone Gigafast Broadband has already gone live in Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Coventry, Huddersfield, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Stirling, with additional places to follow this by the end of 2019 and into 2020.
“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,” added Clive Selley, Openreach chief executive. “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.”
