On 25th January 2010, Superfast fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband was launched as a commercially available product.  This gave access to up to 80Mb broadband speeds and was hugely welcomed by both residential and business broadband users.  The roll-out of this technology is still ongoing and has facilitated the use of 4K video streaming services, VoIP services and a rapid move towards cloud-based solutions such as office365, cloud file storage, accounting software, and data back-ups.  

The government now claims a 93% coverage of 'Superfast' speeds, however it is still very much a postcode lottery and is still reliant on an ageing copper network between the cabinet and your premises.  Not only that, but inevitably we are now seeing customers with 80Mb connections looking to upgrade to even faster connections.

With Gigabit broadband already available in the centre of Edinburgh; Cityfibre has ambitious plans to roll out Gigabit broadband to more and more areas, providing connectivity speeds 80-100 times faster than is currently available over copper.

So why is this necessary?

Data usage has been increasing by 20-30% year on year since 2005, and this rate of growth shows no signs of slowing down.  Just as Moore's Law saw computers increase in speed exponentially in the 90's and 00's, reducing a computer the size of a small bedroom into a mobile phone, the emergence of cloud-based services has seen a continual demand for faster and more reliable internet connections.  The UK already lags behind much of Europe, and until now it appears we have always been playing catch up.  A full fibre network, covering every premise in the UK is certainly no easy task, but it's the age old adage that those that say it can't be done are often interrupted by the people doing it, and Cityfibre are certainly on track!

If you'd like to find out if you can get Cityfibre today then please get in touch with me on 0131 3000103, or email martin@2circlesconsulting.com.