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Edinburgh-wide gigabit fibre network to turbo-charge thousands

Scotland’s capital is set to benefit from an injection of ultra-fast broadband from CityFibre. 

The project will see 150km of fibre optic cable installed in the city which will allow over 7,000 businesses across Edinburgh to tap into gigabit (1,000Mbps) broadband services. 

Greg Mesch, CEO at CityFibre said: “CityFibre has gathered considerable pace in the last 12 months and we are delighted to be embarking on our biggest Gigabit City project yet, which underlines the scale of our ambition. 

“With thriving financial, tech and media sectors, Edinburgh’s businesses are poised to take advantage of a digital head-start, providing them with a competitive advantage at home and abroad.” 

While initially only Edinburgh firms will benefit from this there’s scope of CityFibre and project partners Commsworld to roll out gigabit services to homes and apartments in the future. 

News of the project to connect Edinburgh follows CityFibre’s previous projects in Bournemouth, Coventry, York, Aberdeen and more recently Newport, where fibre optic connections will be used used to deliver and upgrade public services like CCTV

CityFibre’s Edinburgh network will be built along the lines of the company’s ‘Well Planned City’ model, which is designed to account for things like public sector use, mobile mast backhaul and data centres. 

The Scottish Government wants next generation broadband to be available to everyone in the country by 2020 and projects including this one will go some way to achieving that goal. 

Deputy First Minister and cabinet secretary for finance, constitution and economy John Swinney MSP said:

“I am delighted to welcome CityFibre’s substantial investment in Edinburgh’s digital infrastructure. The future-proofed fibre infrastructure that will be delivered, alongside CityFibre’s recently announced investment in Aberdeen, will make a key contribution to our vision of Scotland having world class digital connectivity by 2020.”

Elsewhere in Scotland, fellow pure fibre providers Hyperoptic have greenlit Glasgow for future expansion while BT continues to roll out a mixture of superfast FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) and FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) across urban, suburban and rural areas, including some of Scotland’s most remote regions.  

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