Vodafone extends broadband reach with new Openreach agreement

Vodafone has broadened its fibre footprint to Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool after signing a new wholesale agreement with Openreach.

The Vodafone business might be primarily known as a mobile business to most, though it has been making strides into the broadband world after signing an agreement with CityFibre last year. What this wholesale agreement with Openreach looks like is an effort by Vodafone to expand its fibre footprint in areas where its primary partner, CityFibre, does not have a presence.

With this wholesale agreement in place, Vodafone will soon be able to offer fibre broadband services in 15 locations throughout the UK.

“Vodafone is committed to a full fibre future and to creating the infrastructure Britain needs to compete and win in the digital era,” said Vodafone UK CEO Nick Jeffery.

“This initiative with Openreach builds on our existing commitments with CityFibre and underlines our belief in the power of digital technology to connect people for a better future and unlock economic growth for the UK.”

As part of the agreement, Vodafone’s Gigafast Broadband service will be available to customers in Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool on the Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network from 2021. The first phase of the Openreach rollout is currently underway and the team plans to be able to reach as many as 500,000 customers on this network by mid-2021.

For Vodafone, this is a wholesale agreement which makes sense. The partnership with CityFibre looks to be one where the terms and conditions are very favourable to both parties, however Vodafone will want to be a service provider which can offer broadband to everyone. The CityFibre deployment strategy means secondary partners will have to be sought.

As part of the CityFibre agreement, Vodafone has made a minimum volume-based commitment for 10 years which increases over the period to 20% of the initial one million premises. In return, Vodafone has a period of exclusivity for consumer fibre-to-the-home services from CityFibre for 12 months, though the time-period is nuanced depending on location and the phase of network construction.

The CityFibre deployment strategy is also a point to consider here. CityFibre is targeting small and medium sized cities, as well as larger towns. These are areas which are generally not being targeted by the likes of Openreach or Virgin Media for fibre deployment. The idea is to create a scaled challenger, and targeting areas where rivals aren’t is a perfectly reasonable strategy.

In short, Vodafone will use CityFibre infrastructure as default, and Openreach in locations where it is not available.

For Vodafone, this partnership demonstrates something which many will see as a plus; ambition. The team is seemingly attempting to expand the fibre service offering to more regions across the country, which should add greater confidence in its pursuit of making a meaningful impact on the segment.