Sky, TalkTalk and CityFibre partner on ultra-fast broadband

UK operators Sky and TalkTalk are partnering with fibre infrastructure firm CityFibre to launch ultra-fast broadband in the City of York.

The companies will form a joint venture company, with plans to build a city-wide, pure fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network to deliver broadband speeds of 1 Gigabit

The network will use CityFibre’s existing metro fibre infrastructure in York, and, once complete, Sky and TalkTalk will sell competing broadband services over the
new infrastructure.

“This marks TalkTalk taking its first steps into investing in building infrastructure as part of our mission to make British homes and businesses better off,” said TalkTalk Group CEO Dido Harding.

Stephen van Rooyen, managing director of Sky’s sales, marketing and brand group, added: “This trial will help us understand the potential for cutting-edge technology to help us give customers an even better quality of service and we’re looking forward to working in partnership with TalkTalk and CityFibre.”

The partners claim that the scheme will mark the first time that a UK city has been connected with such high speeds on a city-wide basis, and will offer an alternative to BT Openreach’s infrastructure.

The partners said they expect the first York customers to be connected in 2015.