Cityfibre has announced that their 1Gbps capable fibre optic (FTTP) broadband network in the city of Aberdeen (Aberdeen Core), which is already being used to connect local businesses, is being extended to connect over 100 public buildings (schools, libraries etc.).
The new agreement with Aberdeen City Council (ACC) is being delivered in partnership with Capita as part of the Scotland-wide SWAN programme. This should extend the length of Cityfibre’s fibre optic network by an extra 30km. Several local ISPs are known to provide services via this network, including Internet for Business, Commsworld and Converged Communication Solutions.
James McClafferty, CityFibre’s Head of Regional Development, said:
“Transforming Aberdeen into a Gigabit City has been a truly collaborative process, working with a range of strategic partners to enable access to next-generation digital connectivity for businesses, organisations, and public sites across the city.
This next phase delivered in partnership with Capita and Aberdeen City Council will provide essential new communications infrastructure for the city’s hard working public services as well as a future-proof alternative to ageing, capacity constrained copper networks. This is a long-term solution that will support the city as data usage and storage needs continue to grow.”
Councillor Willie Young said:
“Aberdeen has fast been emerging as one of the most impressive Gigabit Cities in the UK thanks to an innovative and well established partnership between the private and public sector.
By partnering with CityFibre, we can create a leading digital infrastructure which not only makes a significant statement to the global business community but will allow our citizens to access it in public buildings.
In particular, the network will make an incredible difference to our young people in schools. Digital learning has real benefits in that it allows our pupils to self-learn by being creative with their subject matter. It is crucial that schools are equipped with the best network to allow this learning to continue and develop.”
CityFibre also has several other Gigabit City projects in Scotland, including in Edinburgh, Glasgow and most recently Stirling. More are likely to follow later in 2017.
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Please, please, please Cityfibre, extend your network to help the masses of people in the shire who are stuck on E/O lines! Openreach have just about grind to a halt now.
+1
Cityfibre – I think the clue as to their commercial model and where they operate is in the company name.
Steve – Yes their main business is rolling out to the cities but they have also done several residents networks in England. They say they are a demand driven company but they are probably not interested in doing much rural work I’m guessing.
I’m not sure they’ve extended to residential networks yet. Just the singular, commissioned by Sky/TalkTalk in York.
We’re seeing a number of cities with, in some cases, quite extensive backhaul networks, largely serving quite limited numbers of premises.
If the government is serious about extensive FTTP and want to make that happen, what this really needs is some sort of (probably State) “last mile network” to be built.
Perhaps call it “Broadband Tech”. That will then lay the ducting necessary to get within spitting distance of large numbers of premises.
The government could also help to sort out the issue of “fragmentation” which means that even though some premises can get FTTP, there is no way for the residents or tenants to actually know this.
Perhaps some sort of “checker” could be set up, where you put in your address and get back a list of providers?