City Fibre locations

City Fibre have announced they're installing FTTP to Wakefield where i live and the "surrounding areas". Is there anyway of knowing what surrounding areas they will cover?

I like in a village just outside Wakefield so not sure if they will reach me or not. The website doesnt appear to be updated yet either when doing a postcode search

Their public rollout map is woefully out of date unfortunately.

Better Internet Dashboard uses various APIs to aggregate information on public street-works notices/applications (as well as established provision) currently shows them working in the western side of Wakefield.

You could keep an eye on the local authority streetworks permit portal to see if anything appears around you.

Unfortunately beyond that, there’s not much else in the public domain and they’re unlikely to divulge anything. FTTP plans and works generally are acknowledged to be relatively fluid and difficult to get certainty on exact coverage or timescales.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Their public rollout map is woefully out of date unfortunately.

Better Internet Dashboard uses various APIs to aggregate information on public street-works notices/applications (as well as established provision) currently shows them working in the western side of Wakefield.

You could keep an eye on the local authority street works permit portal to see if anything appears around you.

Unfortunately beyond that, there’s not much else in the public domain and they’re unlikely to divulge anything. FTTP plans and works generally are acknowledged to be relatively fluid and difficult to get certainty on exact coverage or timescales.

Hi, If you send a email, they will tell you if you are in scope, I emailed Greg Mesch and got a call from my area build manager and Senior network build coordinator, around 2 months ago, who informed me i was out of scope unless a BDUK funded project nearby would happen (which they told me they were bidding for), this is due to being too far from their closest data centre.

Cityfibre do seem to be very open and I strongly suggest sending an email asking.

They did give me some extra details in regards to the commercial viability of my area and told me that because I already have VM and Openreach and Netnomia are building FTTP it was borderline, they basically said they wanted to be the "only" option in some areas instead of competing when they have easier more viable options.

If you do email let us know how it goes, i know they don't answer instantly but they are good.

Edit
(I forgot to add that they wanted me to be my area's broadband community champion (benefits like free broadband (St Neots) due to how strongly I support cityfibre)

Edited by RR_The_IT_Guy (Sun 13-Mar-22 18:49:18)

Have you switched allegiance.... thought you were an Openreach FTTP champion

[Its hardly a shock they won't come if VM are already there, Openreach and Netomnia are building]

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Have you switched allegiance.... thought you were an Openreach FTTP champion

[Its hardly a shock they won't come if VM are already there, Openreach and Netomnia are building]

Well I love openreach too they are my second choice but they don't have the upload speed's that cityfibre has. (That and the price is cheaper on cityfibre)


PS I haven't gone down the fibre route for the 10 Gig network internally, the reason was that for the same cost I could upgrade my switching capacity and add copper network to the whole house and get a multigig managed switch with one 10 gig copper and one 10 gig SFP+, with a second switch for the other end with two 10 gig ports and 8 gigabit since there was no need for quicker (for a long time).
Those Microtik 4 SFP+ switches might be added in future as I'm thinking if i ever need more I can just add those as I am running 6 Cat6A cables to my office 4 to the second office with a spare 2 ports on the ceiling going to my office (I have a POE switch) for AP's

Cat6A needs ordering but still looking for the best price.

The two switches are working extremely well and the max speed I have observed so far is around 5Gbps, my PC has link aggregation for a total of 6 Gig.
(Obviously in testing in real world usage, I don't look at usage graphs, but I know my ping is a lot lower during peek times where before it would rise as most the backup for 5 Computers and updates were ran at the same time) Now my NAS's are running closer to the max, one (2x1Gig has around 300 Mbps free the other is maxed out.

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

Well I love openreach too they are my second choice but they don't have the upload speed's that cityfibre has. (That and the price is cheaper on cityfibre)

You may love YouFibre more than CityFibre as they look to be marginally cheaper again...and have a 10 Gbps option....

Good luck with all the cabling and the LAN re-jig.

Thanks for the advise both of you

Will drop them an email see what they say

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

If you send a email, they will tell you if you are in scope
...snip...
Cityfibre do seem to be very open and I strongly suggest sending an email asking.

What's your secret? I've found them very loath to answer. I had to prod and poke them via social media to get a reply. Recently they simply don't reply or acknowledge. I even used different emails in case I'm persona non grata!

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

If you send a email, they will tell you if you are in scope
...snip...
Cityfibre do seem to be very open and I strongly suggest sending an email asking.

What's your secret? I've found them very loath to answer. I had to prod and poke them via social media to get a reply. Recently they simply don't reply or acknowledge. I even used different emails in case I'm persona non grata!

I send a very technical email talking about how other networks are present and how I am aware that Openreach are building a GPON network then going into more detail basically saying that speeds are not as good and that I would support them with local signups down my road. Which I would, I know everyone in all 20 houses and have a lot of influence in broadband and network choices locally,

my emails always go to the top, copying in the support and a few other emails, then wait a while and they would call me up (since i would add my number and address).

Cityfibre have been as fourthcoming as Openreach in my case with FTTP with them.

There is only one rule for FTTP (from any provider): it isn't available to order until it's available to order.

Providers (including Openreach) have been getting bad PR from providing estimates to enthusiastic early adopters and then not delivering to them, and so they've stopped doing so.

You can understand why. On the one hand, the Altnets are having to wave "aspirations" for huge rollouts in front of their investors to keep them happy. On the other hand are planners and surveyors and contractors doing the grunt work on the ground and coming across all sorts of practical obstacles.

My recommendation is that you plan on the assumption that FTTP is *not* just around the corner. Cityfibre haven't even put Wakefield on their proposed coverage map yet; and even if they had, and even if your village were in scope, and even if they complete the build there, you can expect at least 12 months before it becomes available to order. And let me stress this again: it may not *ever* become available to order at your particular property.

Find the best deal you can for now, on a 12-18 month contract - preferably one which doesn't go up substantially at the end, but lets you roll on at a sensible price.