A U.K.-based company, nexfibre, has secured $326.1 million debt investment for its rollout of hyper-fast broadband. This investment forms part of nexfibre’s $3.9 billion fully underwritten and fully syndicated debt financing, which will allow it to roll out its network to 5 million homes by 2026.
Last month, nexfibre’s anchor tenant Virgin Media O2 launched commercial services on its XGS-PON fiber network, which will be wholesaled to other third-party internet service providers. Virgin Media O2 plans to extend its fiber footprint to up to 23 million homes by 2028, around 80 percent of the U.K. The network will create the U.K’s first national-scale challenger to BT Openreach, according to nexfibre.
XGS-PON is an updated standard for Passive Optical Networks (PON) that can support 10 Gbps symmetrical data transfer. It is part of the family of standards known as Gigabit-capable PON.
Earlier this month, CityFibre, a large, independent U.K. fiber infrastructure network, launched what it said was the UK’s first wholesale 2.5 Gbps symmetrical consumer broadband product. By the end of 2023, CityFibre expects to have deployed its XGS-PON equipment into over 90 percent of its fiber exchanges with the new 2.5 Gbps product becoming available to around 20 percent of its footprint, currently standing at 2.5 million homes.
The XGS-PON platform is capable of supporting symmetrical speeds of up to 10 Gbps and is designed to be upgraded to 50G PON.
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