08 September 2015

CityFibre has extended its existing Gigabit City project in Edinburgh to an additional 294 council-owned sites in an agreement worth at least £5.6 million. 

The seven-year deal, which features options to extend to a maximum of 19 years with a lifetime contract value of £16m, will be carried out in conjunction with national telecoms provider Commsworld. It will replace what CityFibre describes as “the expensive, capacity-constrained” copper circuits provided as part of a long-term contract by BT.

The contract is part of a wider £186 million outsourced procurement for the council won by global ICT firm CGI. CityFibre says the 100km network extension will future-proof one of the UK’s largest unitary local authorities and will expand the 50km Edinburgh CORE anchor network project delivered in partnership with Commsworld.

CityFibre and Commsworld have already been working together in Scotland, including a deployment in Aberdeen announced earlier this year.

Commsworld will be working directly with CGI as its preferred network provider to deliver a 400 site WAN for the council delivering faster and more reliable connectivity for schools, libraries and other council buildings. It will also rollout an IPT solution for 7,000 users and a 250 seat contact centre.

On completion in 12 months time, more than 500 council buildings will be connected to the network. 137 primary and secondary schools will also benefit from increased bandwidth at speeds that are up to 50-100 times faster. 

Edinburgh’s 17,000 businesses also stand to benefit as the network grows to areas like The Gyle, which was not included in the first phase city centre rollout.

CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch says the Edinburgh deal is the company’s largest contract to date.

Commsworld CEO Ricky Nicol says CityFibre’s investment in fibre infrastructure will allow Edinburgh to become one of the best connected cities in the world. “Since we launched the Edinburgh CORE network together in May we have seen huge demand from businesses across all sectors, and it is now set to be the biggest gigabit city project in the UK.”

The network is also designed to function as a backbone for any future deployment of fibre to the home connectivity.

This latest deal represents CityFibre’s largest contract to date, Greg Mesch, the company’s CEO, said: “In a matter of months, CityFibre’s partnership with Commsworld has begun a truly transformational infrastructure project in the city.”