Hub Network Services Chosen to Wholesale Bristol’s BNET 1Gbps “Full Fibre”

The ITS Technology group has appointed Hub Network Services (HNS) to become the wholesale provider for Bristol City Council’s recently re-purposed BNET fibre optic Ethernet and broadband network, which was commercialised to supply Gigabit capable “full fibre” (FTTP) services to local businesses.

Until recently the 76km+ long BNET (or B-Net if you prefer) duct network, which has now been around for approximately 17 years, was used to support all of the council’s requirements (telephony, data, traffic related communications and CCTV cameras). However all of that changed in 2015 when a 20 year concession agreement was signed between the council and two alternative network ISPs, ITS Technology and Net Support UK (here).

The goal of the ISPs was to establish an ultrafast fibre optic network that could be used to serve local businesses as well as public sector sites and indeed the first firms officially went live on the platform last year (here). The arrangement reflects a revenue sharing initiative, where a proportion of the income received by the Council from businesses using the BNET service will be used for the funding of other local services.

Now ITS has moved towards the next phase of their plan by opening the network up to other ISPs via the appointment of HNS to manage the wholesale side.

Mike Jones, Head of Major Projects at ITS, said:

“It’s a real pleasure to be working with a local network and IT specialist of such quality in Bristol. The partnership between the Council, HNS and ITS will enable the delivery of large bandwidth to local business throughout the City and support the regeneration initiatives of the Council and its partners.

This will build on the excellent work the council is doing to become a ‘smart city’ using technology to solve some of the road blocks preventing the city in achieving its full potential.”

John Volanthen, CEO of HNS, added:

“As a local network and IT solutions specialist, HNS are delighted to be supporting Bristol City Council in this exciting local business community initiative. With its already extensive footprint, BNET is ideally suited for quickly connecting businesses of all sizes to the Internet, including the many media, marketing and software firms in the area with particularly large bandwidth requirements; as well as large multi-tenant office buildings and corporate premises.

Apart from sheer speed, low latency and low cost, BNET also offers a reliable, fully supported and very secure Internet connectivity solution.”

At present the BNET duct network already covers most of Bristol, extending from Filton in the North to Keynsham and Long Ashton in the South. However the ITS Technology group has repeatedly said that they have plans to expand the fibre footprint (possibly by an additional 96kms), although we’ve yet to see any information on the time-scale and cost for such a development. We note that BNET also has another 60km or so of “unused duct“, which could be re-activated for the extension.

As for BNET itself. The network is available immediately to businesses from just £350 +vat per month (RRP) for a fully managed and supported low latency 1Gbps service. HNS are recruiting a number of locally-based IT support and telecom reseller firms to accelerate roll-out of the new BNET service. Business customer and reseller partners will be supported by HNS’ 24/7/365 in-house network monitoring and support team.