LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has awarded five contracts to CityFibre and one to Connexin to roll out fibre broadband to 236,000 rural homes and businesses, taking public investment in connecting hard-to-reach areas to more than 1 billion pounds ($1.26 billion).
CityFibre will build in areas in the south-east, while Connexin, which is based in Hull, north-east England, will build in the East Midlands, the government said, adding that the contracts were worth more than 450 million pounds in total.
Britain launched its "Project Gigabit" scheme in 2021 to support fibre broadband in rural areas where commercial networks from BT (LON:BT), Virgin Media and others would not be viable.
Data and Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez said Project Gigabit was driving growth, creating jobs and putting an end to snail's pace internet speeds.
"We will continue to work rapidly to ensure people feel the benefits of our rollout to even more places across the UK as quickly as possible," she said on Tuesday.
CityFibre, backers of which include Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Antin Infrastructure Partners, is a major partner. It won four contracts last year for 262,000 rural properties, which it said unlocked commercial expansion to 450,000 more premises.
Chief Executive Greg Mesch said the project was transforming the digital capabilities of rural homes and businesses.
"But that's just the start," he said. "We're continuing to expand our commercial rollout alongside Project Gigabit, extending infrastructure choice, multi-gigabit speeds, and unparalleled reliability to hundreds of thousands of additional premises in these regions."
The project is helping Britain close the gap with competitors in ultrafast broadband.
The government said last month that gigabit coverage had reached 80% of UK premises, up from just 6% in 2019.
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