Hi all,
Earlier this week I asked about the progress on the new city contract. It looks like Norwhich could be part of the second phase of the ATAP. I'm not sure since Norwich was original announced as part of the first round of cities and that an additional 30 cities would be added in the fall. By the way, Norwich was not the only city to go unannounced. Of the 36 cities announced back in March 2020, only 27 cities were actually awarded.
So I was wondering, does anyone have any idea of when these contracts will be annouced? Will they be announced all at once as part of phase two or could they be awarded piece meal since they were already previously announced?
It sounds like CityFibre originally wanted this work started earlier than Q2 2021. But this was before Bechtel. Does anyone thiink that this Norwich contract will be announced within the next 3 months?
For reference, here is my question to Rob and his response is in Red...
1) What is the status of the new city award/Norwich contract? We were providing a deployment plan for the new city and were expecting to start in January 2021. Is there any update? As per CityFibre's own press release, 27 cities were awarded in the first phase of ATAP and "Before the end of the year, CityFibre will launch the second phase of the ATAP..." Hence, the award process is not completed yet and Norwich was not on the list of first phase cities awarded. The company still fully expects to be awarded a city (cities) under ATAP. The company submitted a proposal (rate card) for various cities under ATAP (they do not do the design work or sequencing of nodes - that is done by CityFibre.) Actually, the break ground date was originally for Q2 2021. Mobilization, which takes about 3-months, would therefore be Q1 2021. Prior to the engagement of Bechtel, CityFibre had indicated starting earlier than the original date, however, Bechtel's engagement on September 21st delayed the ATAP award process.