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The ITS Technology Group, which has already deployed various open access and business-focused Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband ISP and Ethernet networks across parts of the UK, has today announced that their full fibre infrastructure is to be extended into 13 additional towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales.
The expansion is said to mark the “next phase” of ITS’ investment in its national network, which will bring more organisations within reach of high-capacity connectivity, giving businesses “greater choice and creating more opportunity for ITS partners to serve customers that need resilient, scalable services to support cloud, AI and other data-intensive applications”.
The first locations to benefit from this will be Coventry, Huddersfield and Loughborough, which should be Ready for Service (RFS) “later this month“. After that we can expect Aberdeen, Bath, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Chester, Edinburgh, Exeter, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea to go live in phases between July and October 2026. But it’s unclear how many extra premises this will cover.
The build will also be supported by “wider investment” across ITS’s wholesale platform, partner experience and product portfolio. As part of this, ITS are continuing to develop their self-service Portal to give partners (e.g. retail ISPs and business networks) greater control and visibility, from order and delivery through to in-life service management.
Daren Baythorpe, CEO of ITS, said:
“Organisations across the UK need connectivity that is built around how they operate, not a residential model adapted for business use. That is why we are continuing to invest where the demand is clear and where our digital infrastructure can create long-term value.
This expansion takes us into even more towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales, supporting the places that power local and regional economies, while giving businesses greater choice in areas where high-capacity connectivity is becoming increasingly important.
It is also about the way the market is served. Partners need more than access to a circuit. They need a wholesale platform, a strong product portfolio and the service experience to support customers with confidence, including larger, multi-site organisations that need consistent connectivity across different locations.”
The operator’s XGS-PON based full fibre network was last year said to “pass” more than 465,000 UK businesses (inc. commercial premises), and they often claim to “reach the rest” through their trusted operator partners’ infrastructure, which includes the likes of BTWholesale, Sky, PXC and Virgin Media Business.
However, while most alternative networks have had to slow or stop their fibre deployments due to wider economic and competitive strains, it’s welcome to see ITS doing the opposite and expanding their network. The announcement also follows after another major broadband altnet, CommunityFibre, restarted a significant roll-out of their consumer facing FTTP network (here).