WORCESTER's roll out of superfast broadband has been paused due to a network provider exiting a contract with a build partner.
CityFibre has said it has exited a number of UK full-fibre broadband contracts including with the Kier Group which has been carrying out Worcester's rollout.
As we reported earlier this year a £21m city-wide project designed to bring the rollout of superfast internet to homes across Worcester has been underway.
But broadband news site ISPreview has now reported CityFibre had exited the contract with Kier and the building of Worcester's infrastructure has been paused.
ISPreview reports CityFibre has faced a difficult year with rising costs and competition, announcing hundreds of job losses earlier this year.
Work has also been suspended in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Bath, which are largely part of the build contracts with Kier worth £82m in total.
CityFibre spokesperson told ISPreview: "As would be expected with a programme of this scale, we continuously review the prioritisation of our rollout locations to take account of factors including competitive rollouts, build partner performance, and deployment costs.
"As part of that process, we’re pausing some local builds."
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CityFibre is now tasked with finding and appointing a new construction firm to complete Worcester's roll out.
In April Robin Walker MP toured the works in Cathedral Ward being carried out by the firm.
CityFibre has saids the technology uses full fibre networks (100 per cent fibre optics) to carry data at high speed (up to 1,000 Mbps) and offers 'near limitless bandwidth and connectivity users can depend on'.
Neal Wright, area manager at CityFibre, said at the time: "Worcester was among the first projects to be announced by CityFibre, so it’s really exciting to see the network grow with more addresses going live day by day.
"We cannot wait to see how the city will benefit.”
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