UK ISP TalkTalk Boosts Broadband Network Capacity with Zayo Deal

Budget Internet provider TalkTalk has agreed to an extension of its existing network capacity contract with international bandwidth infrastructure provider Zayo Group, which should boost the ISPs broadband capacity in the United Kingdom and improve connectivity with New York and Europe.

The deal will require Zayo to deliver a number of network services to TalkTalk by the end of Q3-2014, which among other things includes 10G wavelengths (10Gbps) within the UK and across Europe (plus 10G transatlantic services from London to New York). Crucially Zayo will also increase the ISPs IP transit service speeds from 30G to 50G.

At this point it’s worth noting that the cost of intra-European and trans-Atlantic circuits, especially the older 10Gbps wavelengths, has fallen quite a bit over the past few years and that’s partly due to greater competition and faster 40Gbps and 100Gbps wavelengths becoming more widely available.

On top of that Zayo recently grabbed dedicated fibre optic developer GEO Networks (here), which has no doubt given them some extra options in the UK, and they’ve recently established a presence in France through the acquisition of Neo Telecoms.

Colin Whitbread, TalkTalk’s Chief Networks Officer, said:

“This new agreement with Zayo enables us to rapidly expand the choice of services we offer to our customers in a flexible way, whilst ensuring cost stability.”

Earlier this year TalkTalk revealed that Internet data traffic on their network in the United Kingdom had recently peaked at over 1Tbps (Terabits per second) or 1000Gbps (Gigabits per second) if you prefer (here), which was largely being fuelled by the rising demand for online video and TV content.

Data usage is constantly increasing and TalkTalK’s Joint Venture plans with Sky Broadband and CityFibre to launch a 1Gbps service to homes in the city of York will no doubt be another consideration for the ISP (here). Being a large provider TalkTalk will also have major deals with other capacity suppliers.