With thanks to Esther Green, Senior Account Executive, Tricker PR.
Aberdeen CORE, the state of the art pure fibre network, is continuing to take root transforming Aberdeen into Scotland’s first Gigabit City. Aberdeen CORE continues to be rolled out, delivering a brand new ultra-fast fibre network and helping prepare city businesses for the explosion of data predicted in the years ahead.
The work continues as the Institute of Directors (IoD) has called on new targets to be set for world-beating broadband for the UK, amid claims that the UK is lagging behind many European nations when installing fibre optic cables that enable the fastest broadband connections.
ISP provider Internet For Business (IFB) partnered with CityFibre in the multi-million pound investment that is turning Aberdeen into one of the best digitally connected cities in the world.
Graeme Gordon, chief executive officer IFB believes that ultra-fast network offers resilience to businesses in the city.
He says:
“The amount of data generated globally is set to increase by 500% over the next 5 years. 90% of the world’s current data has been created within the past 2 years.
“This indicates the requirement for businesses to transfer data and connect to the internet in a fast and secure manner is set to increase, meaning the demand for bandwidth will continue to increase. There is an increasing requirement for businesses to ensure they have a sufficient amount of bandwidth to manage data now and into the future. Gigabit enabled connectivity is a way in which businesses can manage this data growth effectively.
“In line with the global trend, IFB’s clients’ bandwidth consumption has been steadily increasing over a 15 year period, and is set to continue to grow. The demand for bandwidth is going to increase through time and supports the trend of increasing data usage.”
North Sea oil and gas plants alone each create and transfer an incredible 1TB of data every day.
Through close collaboration CityFibre and IFB developed a network route, covering the major business locations throughout the City and began the network build in April 2015. The network route covers the key business areas within Aberdeen: the city centre, Altens and Tullos, Dyce and Bridge of Don, with businesses in these areas already taking advantage of the ultra-fast speeds of the Aberdeen CORE.
The IoD has called for faster broadband access for homes and business, with members saying that better broadband speeds could increase business productivity, make them more competitive, and enable them to offer more flexible working to their staff.
The IoD report follows communication watchdog Ofcom calling on BT to open up its cable network and allow competition to improve UK internet connections. Ofcom claimed there was a digital divide in the UK between those with the latest technologies, and those without and stated that decent, affordable broadband should be a universal right.
Graeme Gordon comments:
“BT routes go right back to nearly 170 years ago and like an incumbent national provider that has been deregulated it has struggled to keep competitive pace.
“It is heavily regulated in what it can and cannot do for good reason as the national infrastructure needs predictability and stability – if you look at the US for example where no single national provider exists for many reasons the areas of not spots and super-fast connectivity vary wildly, along with costs and service levels.
“In saying that we shouldn’t be looking back at how badly BT was deregulated or is performing but looking forward at the infrastructure and services levels we need from our national digital network.
“The end user cost and speed options for copper-based connections have plateaued over the last 3 years and the majority of land-based digital connections continue to drop in price per megabit and continue to deliver breath-taking increases in speeds.
“It is this drive for fibre to premise networks, such as IFB delivers with the Aberdeen Core network, that we should be looking to BT and other providers to deliver.
“Government can help here through smarter planning – where digital infrastructure must be part of granting planning permission for a new building or development as electricity and water are. Government should also look at how taxation affects the roll out of new fibre network and could encourage these through a lightening on the ‘fibre tax’ together with more progressive view on planning applications.”
As well as being a lead partner in Aberdeen CORE, IFB designs, deploys, manages and supports key services including Cloud, Backup and Recovery, Internet Access, Networks, Hosting, Workplace Recovery and Telecoms across the UK from its Aberdeen data centre.
For two decades IFB has been providing critical connectivity and ICT services to the UK market place. IFB service over 900 clients throughout the UK, with its key markets include the demanding on and offshore oil and gas sector, professional services and public and third sector.
For more information about IFB, visit www.ifb.net or call 0845 270 2101.
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