By Jonathan Easton
British telco Vodafone has extended its partnership with fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) provider CityFibre.
The extended partnership will include Vodafone Ethernet Services for business customers. Vodafone currently uses CityFibre’s FTTP infrastructure for its full-fibre broadband service, and this new deal will expand the premises covered to 12 UK towns and cities.
Vodafone’s Ethernet Services, which include 1Gbps and 100Mbps packages, are now available over CityFibre’s infrastructure in Cambridge, Coventry and Peterborough with Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Portsmouth and Southend-on-Sea to follow over the next few months.
Strategy and Wholesale Director, Vodafone UK Vishal Dixit, said: “We already have an extremely successful partnership with CityFibre, so we’re delighted to be able to extend this to include Ethernet Services. It’s never been more important to ensure our business customers have as much choice as possible, as well as the high-speed and high-quality data service they need to run their business successfully.”
Chief Commercial Officer at CityFibre, Rob Hamlin said: “We’re delighted to be widening our strategic partnership with Vodafone, enabling them to offer innovative and market-leading Ethernet Services over our full-fibre networks. With business’ need for reliable, gigabit speed connectivity only set to increase, our world-class networks will reach 30 per cent of the market in the coming years. This fast-growing platform offers partners like Vodafone products and economics designed to win market share and will help them remain at the forefront of innovation in full-fibre services.”
The companies have also announced a separate partnership for CityFibre to supply FTTP infrastructure for Vodafone’s full-fibre broadband service, including Vodafone Pro Broadband. Pro Broadband packages include fully-integrated features such as hybrid routers that automatically switch to Vodafone’s 4G mobile network if the fixed-line connection goes down.
