Businesses in the UK city of Liverpool should now be able to benefit from access to a new 10Gbps (Gigabits per second) capable fibre optic ring network, which was built for £1m as part of a partnership between AIMES Grid Services, 2020 Liverpool, VirginMedia Business and Global Crossing (original news).

The FibreNet Project utilises Liverpool's existing infrastructure, including AIMES local data centre, Liverpool City Council's (LCC) existing dark fibre network and couples them to national connectivity provided by VirginMedia Business and international connectivity by Global Crossing.

The £1m Networks Service Demonstrator project, which was partly funded through a grant of £350K from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), claims to offer an up to 80% reduction in internet bandwidth costs. Actual peak "shared" service speeds will initially be constrained to 1Gbps (symmetrical).


According to the Liverpool Daily Post, local firms are now being offered free access to the service as part of a 12-month pilot. FibreNet was originally supposed to be of completed on 1st July 2011 but it seems to have slipped; better late than never. Credits to Thinkbroadband for spotting the news.