On Tuesday 24 March Corridor Manchester became the first area in the UK to commit to a “fibre-to-the-premises” next generation broadband network when it launched a £500,000 project funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency.
The project is the first phase in the realisation of a new digital infrastructure for the city. Some 500 businesses and 1000 homes in the Oxford Road area will be connected with fibre optic lines, permitting speeds of 100Mbps and eventually much more.
Manchester Council leader Sir Richard Leesel spoke at the launch on Tuesday, along with Jackie Potter, chief executive of Corridor Manchester and Dave Carter of MDDA – a Manchester Digital council member. Dave commented “we cannot wait for the market providers to do this for us – it’s a bit like public transport, private operators don’t build new train lines or tram tracks - we need to provide the core infrastructure on which they can build. This will be an open access network available to all service providers.”
The Manchester announcement has provoked a flurry of comments on the North West’s How-Do site showing the strength of feeling in this area.
The announcement closely follows BT’s own announcement of FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet) upgrades in various parts of Greater Manchester. FTTC will greatly increase speeds, but industry experts agree that it can only be a half-way step to the full “fibre-to-the-premises” networks that are being installed in countries such as France, USA and Japan.
It also follows the ASA’s recent ruling that Virgin Media should stop describing its broadband service as “fibre optic broadband”.
