A new fibre optic cable has helped the Castle Quay (St. Helier Waterfront) development on the UK Channel Island of Jersey gain access to superfast broadband ISP speeds of up to 1Gbps (1024Mbps). The work is part of Jersey Telecom's (JT Group) five year strategy, which was first announced in November 2010 (here).

The first residents are already moving into their new homes, although initially they will only have access to the service on a trial basis. It’s been installed under the Gigabit Isles initiative, which seeks to make superfast speeds widely accessible to residential customers in Jersey.


Over the next 5 years, Jersey Telecom aims to gradually replace its existing copper cable network with fibre, at a likely cost of around £40m. JT recently launched its new 'up to' 20Mbps broadband service over that same copper network, although at a standard cost of £49.99 per month (+£50 connection charge) it isn't exactly cheap.

JT's new copper based 20Mbps service, which is quite a few years' behind similar mainland developments, should be available to more than 25% of Island households by the end 2010.