Cityfibre and MLL Open Stirling Fibre Optic Network to Businesses

Network builder Cityfibre and UK ISP MLL Telecom have opened up their new 24km long Gigabit fibre optic broadband and Ethernet infrastructure to local businesses in the city of Stirling (Scotland). The network has been live since last year (here) but initially it was only open to public sector sites (Public Service Network).

The original deployment was part of a £1.7m deal and is being supported by a 7-year contract with MLL Telecom. Initially the network was only used to connect 33 of the local authority’s sites, although they’ve long planned to extend this “over time” to cover the “majority” of Stirling’s 3,000 businesses with “affordable” data connectivity services.

In keeping with that MLL’s commercial sector offering – FibreConnect – is now being rolled out, giving local businesses the “chance to benefit from dedicated full fibre broadband capable of gigabit speeds and near limitless capacity“.

Jeremy Wastie, Head of New Business, Public Sector at MLL Telecom, said:

“Stirling is a city with big ambitions and its 3000-strong business community is no different. We are excited to be a driving force in aiding the city’s entrepreneurial business growth. Our ultrafast FibreConnect services will give local businesses the much-needed connectivity speeds to boost productivity and create new jobs that will ultimately benefit the entire community.”

James McClafferty, Cityfibre’s Head of Regional Development, added:

“Full fibre is the gold standard in digital connectivity and a ‘must have’ foundation for growth and development in the digital age. This makes it an especially vital asset for thriving cities like Stirling, which is ambitious to become a hotbed for digital innovation, new start-ups and business growth.

By giving businesses access to the same ultrafast speeds, unlimited bandwidth and unbeatable reliability as their public sector colleagues, the city will have the foundation it needs to become one of the best connected in Europe. And, now that residents are also set to benefit, this historic city will soon be light years ahead of so many others twice its size across the world.”

Separately the city of Stirling was also recently announced as part of the first wave of cities to benefit from a full Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) rollout under CityFibre’s partnership with Vodafone (here), which it’s claimed will extend the existing network to bring it “within reach of practically every home and business in the city“.