UPD UK ISP Fluidata Completes GBP2.5m Broadband Capacity Upgrade

Business ISP Fluidata has completed a £2.5 million core network upgrade “on time and on budget“, which among other things will massively boost the capacity of its new Service Exchange Platform (SEP). The SEP makes it easier for a range of ISPs to reach rural premises through a specially aggregated open access wholesale network.

The work, which was first announced during June 2012, is necessary because demand for SEP and generally rising levels of data consumption mean that Fluidata must be able to cater for the expected growth in 1Gbps (Gigabits per second) and 10Gbps services over the next few years, and to support 100Gbps in the future.

Fluidatas Statement (What’s new?)

Well the network now operates a hybrid core of Juniper MX and Cisco ASR hardware; providing a switching and routing platform capable of supporting 100 Gb/s wavelengths with true MPLS/VPLS support.

The network now also spans 10 UK data centres and supports 16 carriers – allowing us to offer an unrivalled choice of services to both our direct and wholesale clients. With our network expected to expand to incorporate more carriers in 2013 we a building a platform unique in the industry in its capacity and diversity. Already a number of PWAN customers have been migrated onto the new platform and new fibre services are making the most of the multipoint to multipoint functionality.

We believe this upgrade provides us an improved fabric to support our existing and future requirements; the network is more scalable, more resilient and easier to manage. Furthermore, we’re genuinely excited by the enhanced MPLS and VPLS capabilities; which allow us to offer next generation WAN infrastructures at an affordable price point.

According to the original announcement, all existing customer services can expect to be migrated on to the new platform by the end of March 2013.

UPDATE 9:41am

Fluidata’s boss informs that they have already migrated customers over to the new network.