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Gigabit internet speeds to roll out
Bristol is to be one of the first in the country to benefit from superfast, gigabit broadband speeds in a digital infrastructure upgrade.
A £90m deal has seen internet firm CityFibre acquire a national network of fibre cabling from KCOM, which will allow the company to open up 82km of Bristol’s fibre cable infrastructure to businesses, providing ‘Gigabit-speed-as-standard’ services.
Greg Mesch, chief executive of CityFibre added: “Bristol is already a UK leader in digital innovation, but its business community has not yet had the opportunity to take full-advantage. This project provides that opportunity.”
“Less than a month after announcing our acquisition of KCOM’s networks, we have begun to commercialise them. As the UK’s largest alternative infrastructure provider, this is the first of many new Gigabit City launches to come on our expanded footprint of 36 cities across the UK.”
Triangle Networks, a locally based internet service provider boasting hundreds of existing customers in the city, will be the ‘Bristol Gigabit City’ launch partner. Paul Anslow, managing director, said: “We have been watching demand for ultra-fast services grow exponentially in recent years and this project has the potential to unlock a tide of demand for faster, more resilient and more affordable services.
“As this is a pure fibre network, Triangle will be launching services that are ‘Gigabit-speed-as-standard’, far faster than those possible on ‘Fibre to the cabinet’ networks that are still restricted by the limitations of copper wires. This enables businesses to stop concerning themselves with bandwidth restrictions and start to make the most of new ways of working that will improve their experience and drive the bottom line.”
The network will work alongside Bristol’s renowned smart city strategy, which has already made the city a test bed for innovative digital projects. These include Bristol university’s city-sensor network; ‘Bristol is Open’, a laboratory exploring big data solutions to problems such as traffic congestion and air pollution and the trialling of driverless car technology.
Image – Shutterstock
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