Liverpool firms urged to sign up for superfast broadband

gary.king — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:39:52 +0000

LIVERPOOL firms are being offered free access to the fastest available broadband internet speeds in the world.

The city is one of the test-beds for the Government-backed FibreNet project which will offer connection speeds of 10Gbps (gigabits-per-second) – 100 times faster than what is currently available in the UK.

Liverpool’s £1m FibreNet scheme has now gone live, and project leader AIMES Grid Services is urging small firms and other organisations within the areas covered to sign up for the 12-month free pilot.

Using Liverpool City Council’s existing fibre network, AIMES has formed a ring around the city centre that links Liverpool Innovation Park with the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, the city’s universities, the central business district, the Baltic Triangle and the new enterprise zone covering Liverpool and Wirral Waters.

Over the past six months, AIMES has worked closely with the city council and 2020 Liverpool to set up the FibreNet infrastructure.

The initiative is sure to increase the city’s appeal to inward investors looking for world-class digital facilities.

Liverpool City Council’s cabinet member for regeneration and transport, Cllr Malcolm Kennedy, told LDP Business: “The Liverpool FibreNet project is part of our plans to support enterprise excellence, foster innovation and attract the brightest business minds. It’s a real coup for Liverpool to have been selected for this national scheme.”

FIRMS that want to join can contact AIMES on 0151 905 9700.

Access to API’s

FibreNET Admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 10:58:15 +0000

Five new network services demonstrators to become testing ‘hotspots’ for digital businesses

FibreNET Admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 10:57:05 +0000

The Technology Strategy Board is to support growth and technological innovation in the UK’s broadband network by investing over £2m to help establish five open network services demonstrators.

The demonstrators will become national ‘hotspots’ where businesses will be able to test business models, applications and services that can be supported by advanced, open and flexible networks and network services.

Dr. Nick Appleyard, Head of Digital at the Technology Strategy Board, said:

“With modern businesses and public services relying increasingly on high quality broadband networks and network services, innovation in these areas is critical for the growth of our knowledge-based economy. We are therefore delighted to invest in these five network services demonstrators, which will help to improve co-operation between infrastructure providers, content producers, users and application and services providers”.

The five demonstrator projects will be led by AIMES Grid Services CIC Ltd, aQovia UK Ltd, Avanti Communications Ltd, Bubblephone Ltd and Ovation Data Services Inc UK.

The objective of these projects, which are part of the Technology Strategy Board’s digital investment programme, is to address the barriers between the network, content and applications business communities. These barriers are seen to prevent new business models and innovation centred on advanced network capabilities. The aim is to create a joined-up facility of national open ‘hotspots’ for realistic trials centred on advanced network services. This will be achieved by establishing a small number of demonstrators using real production networks and real users.

Professor Dennis Kehoe, Chief Executive of AIMES Grid Services, said:

”The FibreNet test bed will stimulate the development of commercially viable, innovative products and services and has the potential to make a transformational impact in the uptake of cloud services in the UK”.

David Williams, Avanti CEO commented:

“I am delighted that DART will use HYLAS 1 to provide a unique test environment, stimulating new services and applications”.

Andy McConnell, head of data services at Ovation Data said:

“POSTMARK will provide network services that combine data transfer, data storage and data processing – all with guaranteed Quality of Service – matched to the performance requirements of professional media applications”.

John O’Sullivan, Commercial Director at aQovia added:

“High coverage and capacity municipal networks connected to the local and global developer base are crucial for future digital economies”.

Johnathan Turrell, CTO of Bubblephone commented:

“Cloudscape is a dynamically configurable mobile and fixed data network. We hope its reduced set-up times and superior metrics gathering on the wire will foster UK-led innovation”.

In the first phase, which will last approximately six months, each consortium will develop a demonstrator together with a proof of principle business model, application or service that is enabled by the demonstrator’s features. Each demonstrator will then go live and be made available openly for third parties to trial novel business models, applications and services.

These demonstrators will be used in conjunction with IC tomorrow, the unique test facility launched by the Technology Strategy Board in October which brings product and service developers and programmers together with content providers and enables them to test new digital services and run trials with British consumers. Ends

For full press release including notes to editors please follow this link

FibreNET Project

Liverpool firms urged to sign up for superfast broadband

Access to API’s

Five new network services demonstrators to become testing ‘hotspots’ for digital businesses