CityFibre feeds hungry EE and Three customers with dark fibre

EE and Three signed an agreement with CityFibre this morning to deploy dark fibre backhaul links to mobile masts for the UK networks.

Financial details of the national framework deal, which was also struck with the operators' Mobile Broadband Network Ltd (MBNL) joint venture, were kept secret.

CityFibre said that lighting up dark fibre connections to mobile masts was the first deployment of its kind in Blighty.

The AIM-listed fibre optic infrastructure specialist claimed that the agreement would offer EE and Three "long term cost efficiency" while "improving network performance capabilities".

A dark fibre backhaul project to feed the connections to mobile masts is already underway in Kingston-upon-Hull, CityFibre added.

Its boss Greg Mesch said he was "thrilled" with the deal CityFibre had inked with EE, Three and MBNL, given the two carriers' grip on the mobe market in the UK, which carry around 75 per cent of the data used by Brits.

"This is a completely new model for the industry, set to provide a much-needed change to the economics of capacity management," said EE's chief technology officer.

In April, CityFibre tied up a joint venture with BSkyB and TalkTalk to build a new, fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband network in the City of York that significantly does not depend on BT's infrastructure. ®