North Wales Get Access To Super Fast broadband

A network project backed by the government has been launched in North Wales which connects Holyhead in Anglesey and Manchester using more than 300km of fiber optic cable, which will spread out super fast broadband.

The £30 million Fiberspeed project is a public-private partnership and is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, European Regional Development Funds and Geo Networks and is expected to pay for itself within a couple of years.

The WAG predicts that it will add £29m of Gross Value every year, over the next decade, to the Welsh economy by bringing it on par with the best European telecommunication networks while substantially bringing down the price of high speed services in North Wales by up to 80 percent.

The backbone will allow service providers and other operators to extend the network beyond the current plans through their own Local Loop Unbundling or by using high speed wireless technology.

14 business parks will be linked to the network at first and Fibrespeed hopes to get nearly 20 regional service providers by the end of the year.

Interestingly, Geo Networks is part of Hutchinson Whampoa, the owner of Three Mobile and used a combination of fibre optic cable and long distance microwave technology.

Commenting on the launch, Fibrespeed CEO, Chris Smedley said that “FibreSpeed will allow North Wales to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the UK for the first time”