Sheffield is a significant location in the UK’s internet infrastructure, with all major providers routing a significant amount of traffic via the city.
BT, the UK’s largest telecommunications provider, has implemented their 21stCentury Network (21CN) next generation project in Sheffield ahead of many other areas of the UK. This product has ensured that their network in Sheffield runs on the latest technology and importantly is ready for future growth and technologies to be incorporated.
Virgin Media (Telewest / NTL) have coverage to the majority of the city (including residential areas) and are offering their fastest available products including cable connectivity and fibre lease lines.
Telephone exchanges in the city house equipment to enable direct connectivity to the networks of O2, Cable and Wireless, Edge Telecom, Orange, Easynet and Tiscali.
A city wireless data network is provided by Networks by Wireless Ltd (“IP Net”). The network is certified to the WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) connectivity standard.
The Digital Region
The Digital Region Ltd (DRL) project represents one of the largest public sector-led open broadband infrastructure initiatives in the world. When complete it will cover the city, towns and villages of Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham and serve a population of over 1.3million citizens, 546,000 homes and 40,000 businesses. This is a major opportunity to transform South Yorkshire and achieve a step change that will positively impact on the entire sub-region business, residents and public sector organisations.
This £100m project will be a high profile pilot for Next Generation Broadband Access across the UK and beyond, providing the required 'test bed' infrastructure for use by market leaders in the digital economy, in offering capability for advanced applications.
The DRL Network is offering 25Mbps+ of bandwidth which is both guaranteed and can be delivered with a range definable Quality of Service attributes.
Thales Transport and Security Limited (Thales) has been appointed to deliver, manage and operate the state of the art fibre-optic cable infrastructure on behalf of DRL. Thales leads a consortium that includes Alcatel-lucent and KCOM Group. Thales began building the infrastructure in April 2009 and service providers are already able to offer connections to many customers. The network will extend to cover 97% of the South Yorkshire population by 2012.
This will continue to drive forward the already fast growth of internet user penetration in the region. In 2007, households with internet access in the region were measured at 52%. By 2008 this increased to 62% according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. Growth in households with digital television was also strong, with 83% regional penetration in 2008.
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