CityFibre’s announced plans to launch gigabit broadband services in Bristol in February.
Following the ISPs procurement of KCOM’s national fibre networks last year, CityFibre’s wasting no time on making the most of its newfound asset; 82-kilometres of fibre optic cable will be used to launch business broadband services under the ‘Bristol Gigabit City’ banner.
Local ISP Triangle Networks has joined up as a launch partner to encourage Bristol-based firms to sign up for gigabit fibre broadband instead of FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet)-based products.
Paul Anslow, managing director at Triangle Networks said: “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.
Related: CityFibre and HighNet to light up Glasgow with gigabit fibre broadband, ‘Thousands’ more to get gigabit broadband in Sky & TalkTalk trial“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.”
CityFibre’s CEO Greg Mesch spoke keenly of the new partnership and what is meant for the rest of the UK: “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 and I could think of nowhere more exciting to begin our latest project.
“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.”
Last year CityFibre bought KCOM’s duct and fibre networks in 24 cities as well as over 1,000 kilometres of long-distance backbone links that connect data centres across the UK, for a cool £90 million.
How does your service compare to a gigabit? Take our Broadband Speed TestThe new networks could be used as a springboard for a rollout of FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) networks and services to residential customers as well as businesses. By 2020, CityFibre plans to be live in 50 UK cities, which it estimates will put its services within reach of around 5 million homes and 350,000 business.
When Mesch talks about being an ‘alternative provider’ he means an alternative to Openreach, BT’s network arm.
As well as launching business broadband services in Bristol, CityFibre’s been quietly getting on with a trial of a residential FTTP service in York, along with Sky and TalkTalk. This could pave the way for ISPs using CityFibre’s network to deliver download speeds in excess of 900Mbps.
BT has announced plans to reach 10 million UK homes with G.fast-based services by 2020. G.fast is a technology which has delivered download speeds of around 700Mbps in lab conditions and is being tested in the wild right now. BT says that it’s also planning on making gigabit fibre broadband available to more customers, although it’s less clear at this stage what its plans are for selling this.
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