Northampton to plug into UK's fastest broadband

20 March 2019, 19:39 | Updated: 20 March 2019, 19:52

If your kids are fed-up of slow i n t e r n e t when watching YouTube or your emails are SOOOO slow; work will be underway later this year to REALLY speed things up in Northampton.

£40m is being spent ripping out the old copper cables at the town's exchanges and replacing it with so-called gigabit broadband.

After initially being available only to Vodafone customers, it'll be opened to all operators by 2021.

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Northampton is set to benefit from a major investment of £40m in its digital future, as part of CityFibre plans
to replace the nation's legacy copper-based networks with gigabit-capable full fibre connectivity.

This future-proof infrastructure is expected to boost productivity and innovation, and deliver millions in economic benefits for the town, while also giving residents access to the UK's fastest broadband services.

Detailed planning is already underway as CityFibre designs a network capable of serving all the current and future digital demands of the town.

On completion, the state-of-the-art network will reach nearly every home and business.

It will also provide a platform for a new generation of smart city applications and backbone to support a future roll-out of 5G mobile services.

CityFibre is working closely with Northampton Borough Council and Northamptonshire County Council to maximise the benefits of the roll-out.

The new infrastructure will build on the company's existing full fibre network in the town, which has been dramatically improving the digital capabilities of businesses across Northampton since 2016.

CityFibre will use modern build techniques to deploy the network quickly, while minimising disruption to residents. The roll-out will begin in autumn 2019, with Vodafone Gigafast broadband services set to go live by the end of the year.

At present, full fibre connectivity is only available to 6% of UK properties. By using fibre optic cables for every stage of the connection from the customer's home or business to the internet, users are offered a significantly superior and more reliable broadband service, with download speeds 20 times faster and upload speeds 150 times faster than the average fixed broadband connection in the UK.

Greg Mesch, CEO at CityFibre, said:

"At CityFibre we are leading the charge to switch over the UK from the copper wires of the past to the fibre of the future. Full fibre is the only infrastructure fit to power our economy in the digital age.

With the addition of Northampton and Bournemouth to our previously announced Gigabit City projects, we have now identified over 1 million UK homes that will benefit from world-class connectivity. Our roll-outs are gathering momentum and we're now focusing on selecting the next wave of cities in the programme."