Highlands internet service provider HighNet has teamed up with fibre network provider CityFibre in a bid to transform Glasgow into a so-called Gigabit City like Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
The Inverness-based business has taken on eight employees and spent £250,000 fitting out 4,000 square feet of office space in the city’s St Vincent Street as its project partner CityFibre prepares to begin laying 13km of pure-fibre cables across the city centre next month.
The new network, which will offer ultra-fast internet connectivity that is up to 100 times faster than that offered by existing infrastructure, will be operated by CityFibre and made available to HighNet’s customers. Currently HighNet, which serves only businesses, has 2,500 customers across the city.
David Siegel, managing director of HighNet, said the relationship between his company and CityFibre is that “they dig it and we connect it”.
“CityFibre will lay ‘dark fibre’ into the ground along the route that we have provided for them with customers that are ready to come on board,” Mr Siegel added. “They are our customers and we provide the connectivity.”
James McClafferty, CityFibre’s head of regional development in Scotland who was previously Scottish regional partnership director for BT, said his company would begin laying the infrastructure between the end of September and the end of November with connections expected to go live in early 2017.
Seventeen streets have been earmarked for the first phase of construction, with West Nile Street, St Vincent Street, Ingram Street and Albion Street among them. CityFibre also plans to upgrade existing networks that it has acquired in Paisley, the south side and west end of the city.
Mr McClafferty added that while HighNet had guaranteed to provide the business with 100 customers in the first instance, the plan is to commercialise the network by making it available to all internet service providers operating in the city.
The move has been welcomed by Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. Deputy chief executive Richard Muir said: “Ultra-fast internet connectivity is an extremely useful commodity for the business community…. This type of development further strengthens Glasgow’s extensive credentials as a digital hub where businesses can thrive.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here