Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of their parentage with broadband ISP partner Virgin Media (O2), has today announced that they expect to cover 13,000 premises across the Kent (England) city of Canterbury via their new wholesale accessible 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network.
The Canterbury deployment represents an interesting development, not least because Virgin Media hasn’t previously had any significant presence in the city. At present, the main gigabit-capable operators in the city are Openreach and Netomnia (YouFibre), along with some smaller roll-outs from OFNL and others.
Nexfibre has already covered over 1 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network, and they’re currently in the process of investing another £1bn during 2024, which should enable them to cover an additional 1 million UK premises (on top of their existing footprint).
Just for some context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners originally setup the new £4.5bn nexfibre joint venture in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT currently served by Virgin Media’s network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.