Jisc Pick Neos Networks for 100Gbps Network in North West England

Jisc, which provides network and IT services to education institutions, has chosen Neos Networks to deliver their new Dark Fibre network, which will serve their sites (e.g. Universities and Research Centres) in the North West of England with data speeds of up to 100Gbps (Gigabits per second).

The new network will replace Jisc’s existing Janet North network, which currently serves the same region but is now in need of an upgrade. It will provide gigabit capability to all the sites using the new network, with some seeing a ten-fold speed increase compared to their current offering and all achieving high-capacity speeds up to 100Gbps.

The North-West is one of Jisc’s busiest regional centres serving more than 150 sites, such as large universities in Manchester, Liverpool and Lancaster. Not to mention numerous colleges, and major research establishments, such as Jodrell Bank, and the Science & Technology Facilities Council laboratory at Daresbury, which is the central point for handling data arriving in the UK from the Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN’s lab in Switzerland.

The new contract was awarded following a competitive tendering process and is the latest instalment in Jisc’s ongoing overhaul and rationalisation of 15 regional networks connected into the organisation’s national backbone infrastructure. Indeed, Neos is already working with Jisc to deliver faster connectivity in other parts of England, such as in the Midlands and South.

Pete Asman, Neos MD of Public Sector & Enterprise, said:

“Our relationship with Jisc goes back some 20 years and we are very pleased to take on this latest rebuild to significantly upgrade the Janet network in the North-West of England. Traffic on the network continues to grow exponentially, and the new gigabit fibre capability will ensure that Jisc stays ahead of the requirement in terms of speed, capacity and future growth for its member universities, colleges and research centres.”

Jeremy Sharp, CTO at Jisc, said:

“The network will play a key role in the ongoing shift to the hybrid learning environment, as well as the greater dependence on cloud-based resources that is being experienced across the higher education sector.

Importantly,” Sharp added, “as a publicly funded body, this agreement helps future proof our network, provides 5G backhaul capability for our members, and ensures we can deliver value for money not only to our member organisations, but also to those commercial customers that seek access to our services.”

The development comes shortly after Neos completed the latest phase of their Project Edge network expansion, which has seen them unbundle a total of 550 BT exchanges (here) – they’re already aiming to push this up to 700 by the end of 2022. The company’s fibre UK footprint has also reached around 34,000km.

Deployment of Jisc’s new North-West network will begin immediately, and they then expect it to begin offering services to member institutions as early as the third quarter of 2022.