InfraVia Capital Partners has teamed up with Liberty Global and Telefónica’s infrastructure arm to invest £4.5bn (€5.4bn) to roll out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) to greenfield premises across the UK.

InfraVia will hold a 50% stake in the joint venture alongside Liberty Global and Telefónica Infra’s joint 50% share in the partnership.

The fibre network will be offering FTTH wholesale access to telecommunications service providers, with Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) acting as the anchor client.

The companies said the partnership will initially roll out fibre to 5m homes not currently served by VMO2’s network by 2026, with the opportunity to expand to an additional 2m homes.

Mike Fries, the CEO and vice chairman, Liberty Global, said: “This landmark agreement with Liberty Global, Telefonica and InfraVia will expand our FTTH footprint to millions of new UK homes, creating the undisputed second national fibre network in the UK.

“VMO2 has already committed to upgrading its entire existing 16 footprint to FTTH. This JV will take our aggregate FTTH footprint to up to 23m homes, reaching around 80% of the UK.”

José María Alvarez-Pallete, chairman and CEO of Telefónica said: “The UK is, indeed, a growth market for us and we are very excited to be partnering with InfraVia to accelerate access to next-generation broadband connectivity to a larger number of UK households and adding to Telefónica Infra’s growing portfolio.”

Vincent Levita, CEO and founder of InfraVia, said: “InfraVia has been a leading investor in digital infrastructure for the past decade. Attracted by the long-term trends of ever-increasing data usage and increased need for home connectivity, this would represent our 5th investment in fibre network deployment in Europe through strategic partnerships.”

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