05 July 2016
Peterborough’s pure fibre infrastructure was built following a deal signed with CityFibre in 2013.
Peterborough City Council has trebled the utilisation of its pure fibre network less than two years after it began construction on the infrastructure.
The council recently announced an order for a further 220 new sites via Serco, its managed service provider. The sites comprise CCTV cameras, Wi-Fi connections and a network of information traffic system locations.
Once connected, they will enable the introduction of HD CCTV and Wi-Fi based cameras that can be moved around in place of fixed point cameras.
By migrating these sites from legacy copper connections on BT Openreach to its MAN, the council expects to not only increase its technical capabilities but also reduce its operating costs by leveraging the unlimited capacity of a pure fibre network.
Peterborough’s infrastructure was built following a framework agreement signed with CityFibre in 2013. The MAN now comprises more than 90km of pure fibre and ducts that were originally constructed to connect 107 public sector sites.
Like all of its infrastructure projects, CityFibre says the network was made available on a wholesale basis. The firm says this enables ISPs to offer “affordable” gigabit speed internet services to local businesses, hundreds of which are said to be already connected throughout Peterborough.
CityFibre adds that the network architecture it’s deployed as part of the MAN is identical to that required in future 4G and 5G wireless small cell deployments. The company says its 37 city footprint can therefore serve as the foundation of large scale small cell deployments across a major part of the UK.
Those 37 cities will now be joined by Milton Keynes which has just been named by CityFibre as its next ‘Gigabit City’.
The company will make more than 160km of pure fibre network available to businesses, schools and colleges throughout the city via its partners: Northampton-based service provider dbfb, and, Bradford-based Exa Networks which specialises in providing internet services for educational sites.
