Manchester City Council (MCC) has confirmed that the first stage of its new Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) based open broadband network, which was first proposed at the same time last year (here), will go live towards the end of this month in the Oxford Road area of the city.

It's claimed that the service will be up to 1,000 times faster than any speeds currently offered in the area by existing broadband providers, which is very optimistic and somewhat dependant on your base of comparison. Most FTTP networks typically start out by offering maximum speeds of 'up to' 100Mbps:


Further development to expand the network, starting with East Manchester, including the creation of an Internet Hub supporting the digital/creative industries cluster at Central Park, will follow shortly after.