CityFibre and Peterborough Seal Partnership on Gigabit City Roll-out

Fibre connectivity will deliver future-proof digital infrastructure throughout Peterborough

London and Peterborough, 13 November 2013 – CityFibre’s vision of creating Gigabit cities throughout the UK took a significant step forward today with the official signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Peterborough City Council at a ceremony held in the Town Hall.

Following the recent announcement of its intention to privately invest in the fast-growing city, CityFibre and the Council have paved the way to ensure an efficient and well-planned network roll-out that will benefit Peterborough and transform it into a ‘Gigabit’ city.

“This is a major step forward in our objective to deliver Gigabit cities that can provide businesses and consumers with the huge benefits of ultra-fast broadband connectivity,” said Greg Mesch, Chief Executive Officer at CityFibre. “The scale of our plans and the strategic partnership with Peterborough City Council will enable us to deploy an infrastructure that can create jobs, boost the productivity of existing businesses and attract new companies into the city.”

CityFibre identified Peterborough as an excellent candidate for its Gigabit city vision due to the city’s recent business growth and hunger for innovation supported by its forward thinking local authority. Peterborough will have access to a future-proof pure fibre infrastructure that will position it at the forefront of the UK’s digital economy. The roll-out starting next Spring, will see 90km of core fibre infrastructure deployed throughout the city, bringing the benefits of gigabit speeds to key business districts, data centres and mobile base-stations, as well as schools, hospitals and other sites important to the community. This first phase is expected to be completed within 18 months. Greg Mesch added: “Fibre Broadband is widely viewed as the utility of the future and pure fibre networks, such as the one we are deploying in Peterborough, are the only future-proofed solution. Networks such as this are the foundation of our Gigabit city vision. There are over 100 towns and cities in the UK that currently do not have ultra-high speed connectivity, so the opportunity for CityFibre to play a part in modernising the UK’s digital infrastructure is extremely exciting”. CityFibre will achieve its Gigabit City vision through highly efficient utilisation of its pure fibre networks by Internet Service Providers delivering ultra-high speed connectivity services to local government, businesses and consumers as well as by mobile operators requiring fibre base-station connectivity to enable next generation 4G services. Investor appetite in this sector is gaining momentum. Jon Moulton, Founder of Better Capital, Member of the Advisory Board for the UK Regional Growth Fund and an investor in CityFibre commented on Peterborough’s gigabit future, “I have recognised fibre infrastructure as a major growth area and the experience and achievements of the CityFibre team made them a natural choice for my personal investment in this sector". CityFibre’s Gigabit fibre connectivity is already benefiting businesses and citizens in York where CityFibre has implemented a city-wide fibre network. The same model is proving out further afield delivering real returns and reinvigorating communities across Europe, the USA and Asia. ENDS

CityFibre Media Contact:

Maggie Zaboura Zaboura Consultancy Ltd T. +44 (0) 2035880804 E. maggie@zaboura.com

About CityFibre

CityFibre (www.cityfibre.com) is one of the UK’s leading fibre optic infrastructure providers. By building dedicated fibre optic networks for the public and private sectors, we empower data-hungry users throughout the country, by unleashing unlimited speeds on future-proofed technology.

Our transformational fibre infrastructure projects comprise point-to-point connections, metro rings and Fibre-to-the-Premises networks that make possible Next Generation Access and gigabit level services direct to local authorities, businesses and homes.

CityFibre manages over 100 private fibre projects in 50 towns and cities and seven separate metropolitan fibre networks under long-term contract with local authorities, police forces, healthcare organisations and universities. With 30,000km of fibre in the ground, connecting more than 350 sites and data centres across the UK, we are the country’s largest independent provider of fibre in secondary cities.

In Bournemouth, CityFibre owns the largest FTTH project in the UK. With over 21,000 homes ready for service, the network enables service providers to deliver unprecedented ultrafast broadband with speeds of up to one gigabit per second.