CityFibre Will Expand York UK Fibre Optic Network to Businesses and Homes

CityFibre, which builds fibre optic infrastructure for cities in the United Kingdom, has announced that its “open access” and city-wide Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) style ultrafast broadband network in York will be extended to serve local businesses from early next year (Q1-2013). Residential homes to follow.

The move has been on the cards since March this year when CityFibre revealed its future ambitions for their 10Gbps (Gigabits per second) capable and 103km long fibre optic ring network in York, although at the time it was only being used to serve 110 council buildings and other facilities including schools, libraries and sports centres etc.

The York CORE, which is what they’re calling it, aims to offer a range of services, from entry-level business broadband to dedicated fibre connectivity, through ISPs like Pinacl and York Data Services. The initial focus of The York CORE will be to connect businesses, yet long-term plans are to extend the services to home users via an FTTH solution.

James Alexander, Leader of York City Council, said:

“We have worked hard over the last year to significantly up our game on digital infrastructure and we have built relationships with private sector infrastructure providers, encouraging them to invest in York.

We now have a future-proof digital infrastructure, built in partnership with CityFibre and capable of supporting all the elements of a modern city, now and in the years to come. This supports our aim of positioning the city as the digital infrastructure capital of the North and in the top 10 mid-sized cities in Europe.”

Mark Collins, CityFibres Director of Public Policy, added:

“Our long-standing partnership with the City of York Council represents the essence of CityFibre’s vision for towns and cities throughout the UK. Recently awarded the NextGen12 Award for Collaborative Advantage, the pure fibre network in York is only just beginning to demonstrate its full potential to transform the way that the City of York operates and communicates in a truly digital age.

We are now extending the network out to offer the business community the opportunity to take advantage of the benefits that a pure fibre infrastructure can bring. We would welcome discussions with service providers keen to make use of this unique pure fibre network.”

As usual the initial roll-out will be planned to reach areas with “the greatest demand” first. Businesses interested in finding out more are encouraged to register their interest on The York CORE website and take part in a brief survey to help local ISPs understand their requirements and set prices.

The City of York Council (CYC) believes that such a development would help it to meet their current goal, which aims to serve 95% of all local businesses with access to a minimum internet connection speed of 25Mbps by the end of 2014.