CityFibre appoints Bechtel to boost full fibre deployment
Details
Faye Sutton
| 22 September 2020
UK fibre broadband network provider CityFibre has appointed engineering and project management specialist Bechtel to support a major acceleration in its full fibre rollout.
CityFibre Construction 21Sep2020

The agreement is part of CityFibre’s £1.5 billion total bundle of contracts to be awarded to construction companies in the coming weeks through its Accelerated Tenders Award Programme.

Bechtel has overseen metro fibre and fibre to the premises (FTTP) rollouts for AT&T, Verizon, XO and Google Fiber in the US and the Viatel Cerce Pan-European Network, and has more than seven decades of experience in the UK market, successfully managing major construction contracts including the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1.

Greg Mesch, chief executive at CityFibre, said: “The demand for world-class digital infrastructure deployments from the government, Ofcom and crucially our current and prospective customers, is increasing by the day. Bechtel’s expertise in the delivery of national infrastructure projects will complement our existing teams and ensure we can rapidly increase the number of parallel build projects, while still delivering the high quality of network demanded by our customers and theirs.

“Delivering full fibre nationwide by 2025 is a critical target and a huge undertaking. We are determined to be a major contributor to this target. This landmark partnership with Bechtel is another important demonstration of how CityFibre is doing everything to ensure delivery and maximise our contribution while helping to ensure a healthy and competitive digital infrastructure market.”

CityFibre will fully integrate Bechtel’s teams within its existing organisational structure, to help reach optimal productivity in each location in the shortest possible time.

John Williams, Bechtel’s UK infrastructure managing director, said: “We are excited to partner with CityFibre to help make real their ambition to transform digital infrastructure across the UK. We will be bringing our skills in rapid mobilisation and large-scale infrastructure delivery to the team. Our agreement with CityFibre is part of a deliberate strategy to diversify and align our UK business with the emerging growth sectors of the economy.”

The new projects will create thousands of jobs across CityFibre’s construction partners. By the end of 2021, it is anticipated that network construction will be underway in more than 100 towns and cities across the UK.