CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, has announced it has begun work in all nine of its ‘Project Gigabit’ areas, as work gets underway to connect over 50,000 rural and hard-to-reach premises in Kent to full fibre broadband. In total, over 1.3 million homes and businesses2 across rural or hard-to-reach areas stand to benefit from CityFibre’s ‘Project Gigabit’ rollout over the next five years.

CityFibre’s Project Gigabit rollout was made possible by the award of £782m of Government subsidies to CityFibre, which is also contributing its own investment to deliver the project and reach even more homes and businesses in rural or hard-to-reach areas. CityFibre’s Project Gigabit rollouts are part of the company’s commitment to reach more than eight million premises nationwide.

Telecoms Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “No one – no matter where they live or work – should be held back in their personal or professional lives because of lack of digital connectivity.

“Project Gigabit is providing the tools for people up and down the country to prosper in the digital world, allowing communities to stream, work and learn online with buffer-free broadband. With this latest rollout of gigabit connectivity in hard-to-reach parts of Kent, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, we are breaking down even more barriers to opportunity in Britain.”

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said: “Project Gigabit made the rollout of full fibre broadband to rural and hard-to-reach areas possible and we’ve already seen the difference that full fibre connectivity makes: supercharging small businesses, connecting communities and powering your local pub. Our teams have worked incredibly hard to map routes, lay cables, climb telegraph poles and engage with local communities, as we continue to expand the reach of network and bring the benefits of full fibre broadband to over 1.3m premises in hard-to-reach areas and more than eight million premises across the UK.”

Over the next five years, around 1.3m homes and businesses will be connected to CityFibre’s next generation, full fibre broadband network as part of the government’s Project Gigabit programme. Funded by Building Digital UK (BDUK), Project Gigabit enables rural areas across the country to access reliable full fibre broadband, bringing ultrafast connectivity to homes and businesses that would otherwise have missed out.

CityFibre’s ‘Project Gigabit’ rollouts are part of part of the company’s commitment to reach more than eight million premises nationwide.