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UK altnet signs up local ISP HighNet for 40-km Glasgow network.
CityFibre, the alternative wholesale fibre network provider in the UK, said Glasgow would become its 37th so-called “Gigabit city” after it signed a deal with local ISP HighNet.
The ISP has invested £250,000 in developing a new base in Glasgow and plans to provide ultra-fast Internet to surrounding businesses, schools, hospitals, and public sector services once the network is completed.
Set to commence construction later this year, CityFibre said its 40-km multi-million-pound pure fibre investment would make Glasgow Scotland’s third Gigabit City, with connections expected to go live in early 2017.
The first phase will take up to 12 months to complete and will be capable of reaching over 7,000 businesses and public sector organisations as well as seven hospitals.
James McClafferty, CityFibre’s head of regional development in Scotland, said: “In cities like Glasgow, the rise of new technologies is radically transforming the way we live and work, and this means that our digital connectivity can either be a barrier to growth and innovation or a catalyst for economic and social development.”
CityFibre is building a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network as an alternative infrastructure to that provided by BT Openreach and like many has criticised the continuing close links between BT Group and its infrastructure provider.
CityFibre does not believe that Ofcom’s plan to make Openreach more independent from BT goes far enough. The UK regulator proposed that Openreach become a legally separate company within BT Group, but stopped short of pushing for a full structural split.
In July, Mark Collins, CityFibre’s director of strategy and policy, said the proposals did not address Ofcom’s key objectives of reducing the country’s dependence on Openreach and encouraging essential investment in fibre.
"Further debate and navel-gazing as to the appropriate structure of BT will continue to create a period of uncertainty at a time when the industry needs clarity, direction and competitive investment," Collins said.
Earlier in July, CityFibre also said Ofcom had made "bad decisions" that reinforce BT’s position as a monopoly supplier of dark fibre and filed a lawsuit against the regulator’s plan to force BT’s Openreach arm to offer dark fibre access to rival operators with the High Court’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).
