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Sky takes on BT with ultra-fast broadband network in York(Guardian (UK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The city of York is to have the fastest broadband speeds in Britain after four telecoms groups, led by Sky and TalkTalk, announced plans to build an ultrafast network. The York network will be capable of delivering speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (1Gbps) - which is 12 times faster than BT's standard superfast broadband and enough for 200 people in one house to stream high-definition video at the same time. The infrastructure project is the biggest challenge yet to BT's dominance of the UK's fixed-line telecoms infrastructure. York's network will be built by the Japanese electronics firm Fujitsu and by CityFibre, a British firm that already owns 18,000 miles of fibre and sells high speeds to public-sector, mobile-network and business clients. The companies say they intend to bring ultra-fast broadband to two further UK cities, as yet unnamed . York's network will beat the top speeds offered by BT and Virgin Media by running fibre optic cables all the way to buildings, serving tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the city. While the UK has pockets of fibre connected to premises - in areas such as Yorkshire and Hull, for example - this will be the first engineering project to install ultra-fast on a city-wide basis. The first phase will connect 20,000 premises. BT's infrastructure mostly takes fibre as far as the street cabinet, relying on copper for the final distance to the doorstep and giving a top speed of up to 80 megabits per second (80Mbps). Targeting a city of 200,000 inhabitants, this will be one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects undertaken by Sky and TalkTalk, which until now have relied entirely on BT's own network to reach their customers. Sky, TalkTalk and CityFibre will each hold a 33.3% stake in the joint venture. Sky and TalkTalk will each invest pounds 5m, with CityFibre making its contribution in kind through the use of fibre it has already installed in York. This currently links public-sector buildings. TalkTalk's chief executive, Dido Harding, said: "We are excited to be working in partnership with Sky and CityFibre to build this new network that will offer significantly higher speeds at much better value than is currently available. This marks TalkTalk taking its first steps into investing in building infrastructure." She said the project marked a major change of direction for her company: "We're excited about this being the first step in our journey to becoming an infrastructure company." York city council leader James Alexander said: "This announcement makes York the digital infrastructure capital of the UK." The next two cities are likely to be selected through a competition. The partners have taken inspiration from Google, which installed gigabit fibre in Kansas and is now looking at a further nine metropolitan areas in the United States. Captions: York will be one of three British cities to benefit from up to 1 gigabit per second broadband Photograph: Rex (c) 2014 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |