CityFibre appoints advisor for UK-wide fibre project

12,000 UK sites have been consolidated as part of the MBNL project

UK firm CityFibre Holdings has appointed Macquarie Capital to act as financial advisor on its next stage of capital formation, as it gets ready to build fibre networks across the country that will eventually connect one million homes and 50,000 businesses.

CityFibre is planning to invest up to £500m ($801m) in building metro networks and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks across the country, providing towns and cities with gigabit speeds. Construction of the metropolitan city networks will start early next year.

The company plans to partner with service providers, technology vendors and construction firms to deliver these networks, and has already completed fibre broadband projects in York, Ayr and Dundee.

Meanwhile, incumbent telco BT recently revealed that it expects to have connected two-thirds of UK premises to its fibre-based broadband network by the end of 2014 – one year ahead of its original target of 2015.