A tech firm has scrapped its contract with builders to upgrade the city’s internet speeds, after roads in Woodingdean have already been dug up.
The project to upgrade thousands of homes to faster full-fibre internet speeds was paused, after CityFibre exited a number of contracts with construction groups carrying out the work nationally.
CityFibre says that it will ensure roads already dug up, including Falmer Road and parts of Bexhill Road, are left as they found them by the construction company carrying out the work locally, the Lanes Group.
There is no information as to whether the £80 million project will resume or who the contract may go to next.
A CityFibre spokesperson said: “Given the pace and scale of our nationwide rollout, we continually review the prioritisation of our deployment locations, considering a range of factors.
“As part of this review, we are working to agree on a managed exit of Lanes Group from our build programme. This requires us to pause a number of local builds while we determine next steps.
“Our nationwide rollout is progressing well towards our 8 million target with over 3 million premises now passed by our network, and we’re on track to deliver 1 million Ready For Service homes for our customers this year.”
Woodingdean Councillor Jacob Allen: “I am deeply concerned about the progress of CityFibre works in Woodingdean.
“Many of their projects have not been to a satisfactory standard and I have reported such instances to be rectified by the company.
“I will continue to investigate any cases of sub-standard work and push for our main roads to be set back to normal as soon as possible.”
The project uses full fibre networks (or 100 per cent fibre optics) to carry internet data at high speed (up to 1,000 Mbps), for faster uploads and downloads.
The Lanes Group were contacted for comment.
A quick search on the Internet reveals that this is happening in several locations the UK, with different sub-contractors.
Where this company went wrong was to build in some of the city’s most deprived areas first. For example, they were building on the Bates estate a year or two ago.
Who has spare cash for new fancy broadband?
Should have targeted your ABC ones first.