Rural fibre optic broadband ISP Gigaclear, which is currently still in the process of trying to tackle some significant civil engineering delays, has upgraded their core transport network to make use of Ciena’s 6500 Packet Optical platform. The move supports the provision of 100G channels across the UK.
The upgrade means that rural regions being served by Gigaclear, including Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, should benefit from “greater access to high-speed service with rapid backhaul connections from London to Bristol and Northants.”
As part of this upgrade the provider has also adopted Ciena’s Blue Planet Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller software, which will automate network and service management, as well as providing real-time visibility into their network operations.
Charl Tintinger, Technical Director, Gigaclear Networks, said:
“This investment reinforces Gigaclear’s commitment to bring reliable future-proof, ultrafast connectivity to both Broadband Delivery UK and commercial customers using its network.”
We should point out that a good number of other network operators, such as O2 and Openreach (BT), also make use of the Ciena 6500 platform.
And yet when 100Gbps gets rolled out there will probably still be people on sub-1Mbps connections.
Pssst: there’re already a bunch of 400Gb connections running in core networks. Obviously it’s absolutely nothing to do with the services being delivered to people’s homes, but still.
It would be great to have fast backhaul, but after two years those waiting in several Fastershire areas have passed the build start date with no sign of any activity, and still have no revised start date at all to look forward to. So I see this just as a way to keep Gigaclear in the news without actually doing anything. I would rather see some announcements about the many BDUK rollouts that have been delayed.
Wonderful news but Gigaclear are still failing the Fastershire region as we are still waiting for yet another update and information when they will start the build in the other areas.
Wonderful PR for Gigaclear but failing to provide what they have already promised so far especially in the Forest of Dean areas. Emailed the Fastershire team to get an update of the possible build/start date and still waiting for a response.
I e-mailed Fastershire a few weeks ago to ask whether they had received any updated plans from Gigaclear, as they had previously said the updated plans were due in November. No response yet (but Fastershire usually take a long while to respond to queries). I did also phone Gigaclear, and was told that they might be active in my area by end 2020 if there are no more delays, but couldn’t promise anything.
Or in a more positive interpretation as take up levels and traffic levels grow the backhaul will be able to cope?
I appreciate that it is not much use if the fibre doesn’t actually come to you but to those that do have it, it will keep performance levels up.
People seem under the impression ISPs have a single person or team that both handle rollout of the access network and core network upgrades like these. Obviously one is nothing to do with the other and they don’t even come out of the same budget.
CarlT – from our/my perspective in the FOD it seems as though there is only one team – hopefully it will improve.
@John, if you think there is only one team in FoD I think you are being optimistic. From my perspective there isn’t even one.
Better to start with a sound backhaul than a mess when it can’t cope in a rapid expansion. But this obviously doesn’t help with their other ongoing issues of rollout.
@Joe, well any backhaul would be good. The nearest Gigaclear backhaul to my Fastershire area is still 22 miles away. So upgrading the existing backhaul doesn’t help me at all. As they are expanding out from their existing network to reach new areas, they will have to complete all the intervening areas before they get to mine. They don’t need to worry about rapid expansion here – it isn’t rapid!
backhaul helps in the end but @ 22 miles you’re not going to see much joy till the 2020s
@CarlT
Quite
Separate budgets and totally different business cases.