Comms Business Magazine (CBM): What is CityFibre’s growth opportunity for the channel?
Emma Goodwin (EG): “There is a fantastic opportunity for ISPs that have, up to now, focused on serving businesses and are looking to broaden their horizons and enter the consumer market. With more and more businesses turning to agile working solutions and the increased demands on modern household connectivity needs, now is the time for ISPs to act and seize the opportunity for growth in this new market.”
CBM: Why should channel partners diversify into the consumer FTTH market?
EG: “If ISPs are serving the business community in a town or city, they already have the foundations to serve consumers in the same areas. It’s a great way to diversify their business, generate a new revenue stream and create greater business stability.
“Over the past decade, CityFibre has worked with business-focused ISP partners to drive its Full Fibre message because the business market is where there has been the most urgent requirement for Full Fibre speeds. But that is evolving as more domestic users need faster, more reliable services.
“Today’s consumers need faster connectivity, not just to meet family-wide entertainment needs but to fuel much more definitive and sophisticated requirements such as fully supporting video-intensive home-working and enabling access to cloud-based services. As such, the hunger for residential bandwidth is even greater.
“We aim to accelerate ISPs’ ability to serve these needs through our open access Full Fibre network, which is a powerful message to take to partners and represents a huge opportunity for them.”
CBM: What should ISPs consider before entering the consumer market?
EG: “We understand that some ISPs may need reassurance before setting their sights on the consumer space. Full Fibre is much more reliable and easier to support than copper. Hence, managing large numbers of customers is also easier to support than when on copper services.
“Fibre is significantly more dependable, and that matters. It makes meeting the needs of many more customers much easier. That’s important for ISPs, as it reduces the support burden and their business risk. It means they can scale up without the costs getting out of hand.”
CBM: Why is now the right time?
EG: “ISPs will gain early-mover advantage in a market that is primed for exponential growth by making that move now, and CityFibre makes it easy to take those steps.
“We have a lot more to offer aside from the network. We always go the extra mile for our partners to set them up for success in the town, city or region they are targeting. Not only do we help onboard ISPs to our platform, but we also work closely with them to manage the project and ensure marketing, service and delivery is effortless for them and their new customers. We help them to hit the ground running, which is enormously valuable to our partner ISPs.”
CBM: Why choose to partner with CityFibre?
EG: “CityFibre’s network will reach a third of the country in the next few years, and we recently announced a further 216 locations, in addition to the 69 cities already in build or planning.
“An important aspect of CityFibre’s proposition is providing Layer 2 connections to its Full Fibre infrastructure, allowing ISPs to differentiate and add value. We provide the connectivity platform, but the ISP partner is in control of what they take to market, and any ISP that has the capability can take advantage of our open access offering and tailor it to a targeted consumer market.
“Additionally, when ISP partners join us, they can choose how they interconnect – either locally in our business Fibre Exchanges, which enables them to target growth in a specific town and city, or nationally to address all of our available footprint, economically, through a single interconnect. We’ll be announcing more on this soon.