ICT resellers operating in the Medway towns of Gillingham, Rochester, Rainham, Strood and Chatham will be able to offer customers FTTP within two years if a £40m investment from CityFibre is completed on schedule.
The project, set to be finished by 2023, will bring superfast broadband speeds to the area, which CityFibre claims will boost business productivity and deliver millions in economic benefit for the region.
This will be welcome news for businesses in the area hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis.
A report prepared by the Kent & Medway Economic Partnership states that over the course of 2020, Medway’s economy shrank by 11-14% with unemployment rising rapidly to around 36,000.
Michael Holland, MD of 5G Communications, which acquired Medway-based Diamond Communications last September, told Comms Dealer.
“The investment CityFibre is making in the Medway region is good news for local people and good news for our business because full fibre will create more demand for joined up communications which we specialise in providing to all types of organisations.
"In two years time this awful pandemic will be behind us and business will no doubt boom in Medway and beyond on the back of the FTTP roll out.”
Aideen Sadler, CityFibre’s City Manager for Medway, said: “Digital connectivity has never been more important. Our full fibre network will not only benefit businesses in the region but also households.”
Transforming Medway is another step in CityFibre’s Gigabit City Investment Programme which aims to convert eight million UK premises to full fibre connectivity.