Recycled Fibre Optic Network Brings 10Gbps Broadband to Manchester UK

An old 77km long fibre optic network that stretches across Greater Manchester, which was originally installed by Atlantic Telecom to support the 2002 Commonwealth Games (i.e. just before the operator went bust), has been brought back to life by another ISP.

The network, which is now simply called The Loop, allegedly sat largely dormant for over 10 years before Gamma purchased it from Atlantic Telecom’s administrators and yesterday announced its revival as an active service aimed at local businesses, the public sector and other network providers.

It’s clearly a strategic move for Gamma as Manchester city was recently awarded £12m in additional public funding from the government, which is intended to help major ISPs like BT roll out “ultrafast” (80-100Mbps) broadband ISP services and “high speed public wi-fi” into parts of the city where private investment has failed to improve.

Ashley Griffiths, Managing Director of The Loop, said:

“This is a recycled asset which Manchester has been sitting on for more than a decade. We have kept this network maintained and the time is now right to make it available to local businesses. Organisations located on or close to The Loop can now access ultra-fast internet connectivity and high quality communications services from the same fibre cable feed, giving them a much more flexible telephony service. Ultrafast, reliable internet is vital for any business to prosper and we can deliver state-of-the-art technology cheaply, quickly and efficiently.”

The Loop claims that its Greater Manchester operation is home to over 100 Trafford Park-based support staff, although their press release contradicts this figure by stating that it employs “more than 85 people” at the same location.

Aside from that the network, which is said to circle “the city centre and stretches out to Eccles in the West, towards Oldham in the North, Stretford in the South and Gorton in the East“, will offer service speeds of between 10Mbps (Megabits per second) to above 10Gbps (Gigabits per second).