Fibrecity
Encyclopedia
Fibrecity Holdings was formerly owned by i3 Group and was acquired in January 2011 by CityFibre Holdings Ltd
CityFibre Holdings
CityFibre Holdings Ltd was incorporated in January 2011 as an investment vehicle for the acquisition of i3 Group’s UK subsidiaries: H2O Networks Ltd, Fibrecity Holdings Ltd and Opencity Media Ltd. A builder of passive optical fibre infrastructure, CityFibre Holdings operates in two distinct fibre...

 because of the scale and value of the fibre to the home network already built in Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...

, currently the largest in the UK.

i3 Group launched Fibrecity Holdings as a new high speed fibre optic infrastructure to be built in the UK and was also promised for overseas cities and metropolitan areas. It was said to provide connection speeds of 100 Mbit/s to homes, SME's and educational facilities on the network. The network uses 'fibre to the home' (FTTH) technology.

The infrastructure build was started by i3 Group in Bournemouth in 2009 and this was to become the UK's first Fibrecity. The next UK Fibrecity was announced to be Dundee where work on installing the infrastructure was reported to have started in summer 2010.

i3 Group announced but ceased involvement with a Fibrecity project in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Investigation

In late October 2010 the build suddenly ceased in Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...

 and also in Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...

 only shortly after works had started in the Scottish city. Revelations about the financial backing behind H2O Networks (another i3 Group company) were released in February 2011. Total Asset Finance, the backers, are now subject to an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office
Serious Fraud Office
The Serious Fraud Office may refer to:*Serious Fraud Office *Serious Fraud Office...

and, allegedly, currently owe KBC Bank over £130 million. Over £90 Million of this is apparently related to loans being used to finance H2O Networks.

Restructure

In late April 2011, CityFibre Holdings announced that it had successfully restructured the business with the full consent of KBC Bank who also has a 5% option in CityFibre Holdings.

As of 5 April 2011, the Fibrecity website is unavailable as it is no longer operating as a customer facing company but forms part of CityFibre Holdings. The i3 Group website now says i3 is a worldwide technology licensing company rather than an infrastructure delivery and operation company as originally announced. It was reported on 7th June 2011 that i3 Group has gone into administration.

In mid April 2011 it emerged that service to customers in Bournemouth had been suspended since the end of February. CityFibre Holdings are currently carrying out extensive repairs and testing of the network. Greg Mesch announced that 24,000 homes will be passed and ready for service by the end of the year. According to CityFibre its networks will guarantee minimum speeds of 100Mbps up and downstream, increasing to 1Gbps.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK