Nextgenaccess Complete Full Fibre Between Bristol and Wales

Fibre optic UK network builder Nextgenaccess, which is supported by an investment of £22m from the UK National Digital Infrastructure Fund (NDIF) to help spread its 10Gbps broadband to businesses, has today confirmed the completion of their new 67km high capacity carrier-neutral fibre network between Bristol and Wales.

The project, which built its link between Bradley Stoke (Bristol, England) and the Next Generation Data (NGD) datacentre near Newport in South Wales, made use of Openreach’s (BT) existing cable ducts using Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA / DPA) and also entailed the deployment of a 4km fibre section spanning the Severn Bridge (M48) crossing with 864 fibres in two diverse ducts.

Nextgenaccess added that their new 432 Fibre Optic System offers alternate carriers, telecom operators, broadband ISPs and resellers a “cost-effective carrier independent solution for delivering ultrafast broadband to thousands of currently underserved SME businesses” across the region.

NGD’s existing customers will also benefit from the additional capacity. For example, SEET (SSE Enterprise Telecoms) has recently also committed to taking multiple fibre pairs on the new route in order to connect its 12,000km UK-wide network to the NGD data centre. This followed an increase in demand for high capacity services to NGD and the rest of the UK.

Mark Weller, Managing Director, Nextgenaccess, said:

“We are delighted our new dark fibre route is now connected to NGD and fully operational. Our DPA / PIA license enables us to deploy fibre far more quickly with minimum disruption. If we had followed the traditional road dig approach it would have taken over five times as long and cost more than ten times as much. We can help address the UK’s full fibre deficit in strategic areas very cost-effectively, ultimately enabling significantly lower cost full fibre services for end users.”

Simon Bearne, Commercial Director of NGD, added:

“As a major regional Colocation, Internet Peering and Cloud Hosting hub, the new totally independent dark fibre route is a key addition to NGD’s expanding list of connectivity options. It allows our major customers to have more choice, flexibility and control over how and with whom their ultrafast or custom fibre services are provided.”

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