Leeds and Bradford have become two of the best digitally connected cities in the world thanks to ultra-fast internet services delivered by CityFibre’s launch partners, ExaNetworks and Diva Telecom. Almost 200km of fibre optic infrastructure delivering speeds of up to 100 times faster than the UK national average is now available for use by businesses and the public sector within what have become the UK’s latest gigabit cities.
CityFibre’s fibre to the home network will provide the infrastructure to enable the next generation of digitally based businesses to flourish across the region. The North already contributes about £10 billion a year in digital GVA to the UK economy. The fibre infrastructure will only help to accelerate this as businesses become more productive and the region becomes increasingly attractive as a location to build and grow a commercial interest.
David Cawthray, assistant director of Information Services at the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, commented: ‘This announcement is great news for Bradford. Reliable, ultrafast gigabit speed connectivity is crucial for businesses across the city to compete on the national and international stage. The CityFibre network will support the growth of Bradford’s thriving entrepreneurial business community as well as other bandwidth hungry organisations allowing them to transform the way they operate.’
With the purchase of KCOM’s national communications infrastructure (excluding Hull and East Yorkshire) in December 2015, CityFibre became the UK’s second largest wholesale infrastructure provider. More recently, the company signed a 15-year agreement with UK service provider SSE Enterprise Telecoms for the purchase of dark fibre capacity over CityFibre’s 48-km stretch of network between Reading and Slough.
CityFibre has currently invested more than £70 million in next-generation digital infrastructure across the northern region, and alongside other Gigabit City projects such as York and Huddersfield, will be launching further networks in the coming months.