Businesses in the UK cities of Leeds and Bradford can now access fibre broadband from Openreach rival CityFibre. The company has nearly 200 kilometres of pure fibre optic infrastructure in the two cities, which it said suffered from “a shortage” of FTTC infrastructure. Local ISPs Exa Networks, which specialises in the education and business sectors, and Diva Telecom are CityFibre’s commercial launch partners. The Yorkshire announcement follows the news that Southend is set to come on stream, after CityFibre signed a deal with the local council in March. The company is moving fast to offer an alternative to BT’s Openreach following the acquisition of network assets from KCOM last December. Last month, research firm IHS forecast that new entrants such as CityFibre will boost fibre broadband connections in the UK by 70 percent over the next five years. All Openreach rivals have been boosted by the decision of UK regulator to open up the incumbent’s telegraph poles and underground tunnels to allow competitors to construct their own fibre networks. CityFibre has networks in 37 cities across the UK. Earlier this month, it signed a 15-year nationwide deal to provide connectivity and co-location provider SSE Enterprise Telecoms with dark fibre services. It made a loss of £6.4 million in 2015 on revenues that rose by more than two-thirds to £6.4 million. CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch commented: “As thirst for greater internet speeds continues to grow in all sectors, it’s fantastic to be able to offer cities the world-class digital infrastructure they need to meet the demand."
CityFibre has opened its fibre optic networks in Leeds and Sheffield . Openreach rivals to BT have been hampered by Government ’s recent ruling that Openreach ’s network should be opened up to allow competitors to build their own fibre networks . IHS has predicted that new entrants such as CityFibre will boost broadband penetration across the UK by 70 % over the next five years .