Companies news March 2016

Openreach announced plans to “to connect more consumers and small businesses in the UK to ultrafast fibre using its open access network”. These include two new trials of fibre to the premise (FTTP) technology for business in two areas of Bradford, together with new G.fast pilot sites in Cambridgeshire and Kent. Openreach also committed to build FTTP infrastructure into new housing developments with more than 250 premises. This announcement follows on from Ofcom’s initial conclusions from its Strategic Review of Digital Communications, published in February 2016, which called for “a strategic shift to large scale fibre deployment”.

V3 reported on CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch’s plans to compete directly with Openreach, in the light of its acquisition of network assets from Kcom in December 2015 which more than doubled the reach of its network into 35 areas. CityFibre also announced this month that it had formed an infrastructure partnership with Updata, under which Updata can “access CityFibre’s existing national network infrastructure to deliver cutting edge, scalable and competitively priced services to the public and private sectors”, and that it had been selected by Southend-on-Sea Borough Council to supply “a 50km future-proof dark fibre network connecting 120 key public sector sites throughout the town”.

FTTP provider Hyperoptic announced that it is to supply gigabit broadband to Salford Counci’s housing portfolio, following a previous similar agreement with Hyde Housing in South London. In January the company announced the launch of gigabit services in Reading. Recombu reported on an interview with Hyperoptic Managing Director Dana Tobak in which she welcomed Ofcom’s proposals following its Strategic Review of Digital Communications to expand access to BT’s duct and pole infrastructure.

Finally, Gigaclear announced that over 10,000 properties in the most remote areas of Oxfordshire will have access to gigabit Internet speeds on completion of its current roll-out, and Virgin Media announced it had won a contract to provide the connectivity that will power the Met Office’s next generation supercomputer, one of the world’s fastest, high performance computers.