CityFibre has announce that Bristol will become the UK’s next Gigabit City.

It is the first to be launched by the company following its £90 million acquisition of KCOM’s national fibre networks (excluding Hull and East Yorkshire). CityFibre will begin work to commercialise 82km of pure fibre network assets in the city and surrounding areas.

Triangle Networks, a locally based internet service provider (ISP) boasting hundreds of existing customers in the city, will be the ‘Bristol: Gigabit City’ launch partner. Triangle is committing a minimum of 100 new customers on the network by year-end. They will work closely with CityFibre to encourage businesses across the city, to connect to the pure fibre network and take advantage of market-leading ‘Gigabit-speed-as-standard’ services.

As one of the most digitally advanced cities in the UK, Bristol is ideally suited to make the most of the new infrastructure. The network will complement Bristol’s renowned smart city strategy, which has already made the city a test bed for innovative digital projects. These include Bristol university’s city-sensor network; ‘Bristol is Open’, a laboratory exploring big data solutions to problems such as traffic congestion and air pollution; and the trialling of driverless car technology.

Paul Anslow, MD at Triangle Networks said: “We’re hugely excited to be CityFibre’s Gigabit City launch partner on this project. We have been watching demand for ultra-fast services grow exponentially in recent years and this project has the potential to unlock a tide of demand for faster, more resilient and more affordable services. “As this is a pure fibre network, Triangle will be launching services that are ‘Gigabit-speed-as-standard’, far faster than those possible on ‘Fibre to the cabinet’ networks that are still restricted by the limitations of copper wires. This enables businesses to stop concerning themselves with bandwidth restrictions and start to make the most of new ways of working that will improve their experience and drive the bottom line.”

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre added: “We’re delighted to be able to announce Bristol as our next Gigabit City project and to be working with Triangle Networks, experts and innovators in business connectivity, to ensure its success. Bristol is already a UK leader in digital innovation, but its business community has not yet had the opportunity to take full-advantage. This project provides that opportunity and I could think of nowhere more exciting to begin our latest project. Less than a month after announcing our acquisition of KCOM’s networks, we have begun to commercialise them. As the UK’s largest alternative infrastructure provider, this is the first of many new Gigabit City launches to come on our expanded footprint of 36 cities across the UK.”

Bristol Gigabit City will be officially launched at an event in February at which point a city-wide marketing campaign will begin, raising awareness of the benefits to businesses from the Gigabit speed services on offer and enabling CityFibre to map demand for local network expansion projects.