Less than a month after acquiring KCOM's national fibre networks (excluding Hull and East Yorkshire) for £90m CityFibre has begun to commercialise them with the launch of a Bristol Gigabit City project in partnership with local ISP Triangle Networks. "This is the first of many new Gigabit City launches to come on our expanded footprint of 36 cities across the UK," confirmed Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre.
Triangle Networks is committing a minimum of 100 new customers on the network by year-end and will work closely with CityFibre to encourage businesses across the city to connect to the pure fibre network and take advantage of Gigabit-speed-as-standard services.
The network will complement Bristol's smart city strategy which has already made the city a test bed for innovative digital projects.
These include Bristol university's city-sensor network called Bristol is Open, a laboratory exploring big data solutions to problems such as traffic congestion and air pollution, as well as trialling driverless car technology.
Mesch added: "Bristol is already a UK leader in digital innovation but its business community has not yet had the opportunity to take full advantage. This project provides that opportunity and there is nowhere more exciting to begin our latest project.
Paul Anslow, MD at Triangle Networks, commented: "We have been watching demand for ultra-fast services grow exponentially in recent years and this project has the potential to unlock a tide of demand for faster, more resilient and more affordable services.
"As this is a pure fibre network, Triangle will be launching services that are Gigabit-speed-as-standard, far faster than those possible on FTTC networks that are still restricted by the limitations of copper wires.
"This enables businesses to stop concerning themselves with bandwidth restrictions and start to make the most of new ways of working that will improve their experience and drive the bottom line."
Bristol Gigabit City will be officially launched at an event in February at which point a city-wide marketing campaign will begin, raising awareness of the benefits to businesses from the Gigabit speed services on offer and enabling CityFibre to map demand for local network expansion projects.