Peterborough charities celebrate as they win gigabit speed internet connectivity

Local charities Shine and Rainbow Saver were today announced as the first two Peterborough CORE competition winners at Opportunity Peterborough's Bondholder breakfast. Both charities will receive free connection to the network from CityFibre along with a year of free gigabit speed internet and phone service (VOIP) from Businesscoms. Throughout June, the public have been nominating their favourite Peterborough charity or not-for-profit organisation to win the competition via Twitter, with nominated charities then tweeting the reason why they wanted to be connected to the Peterborough CORE network. Although Shine and Rainbow Saver were selected as the first two winners, CityFibre hopes to connect more charities for free in the future. Speaking at the Bondholder breakfast event, Tom Scott, Fundraising & Communications Manager at Shine said, "Everyone at Shine is delighted with the news. Our work as a charity relies completely on making connections and we can only do this with the best networks in place. Having the very latest technology at our finger tips via Peterborough CORE will enhance the support we offer to the thousands of people affected by spina bifida and hydrocephalus. We look forward to experiencing the best connectivity available to the Peterborough business community and offer our sincere thanks to those who nominated us via the Twitter competition". Andy Starnes, CityFibre's City Development Manager, who announced the charity winners today, said, "We launched the competition in partnership with Businesscoms to give back to the local community and ensure the benefits of gigabit speed connectivity can also be experienced by the city's charitable organisations." "With speeds up to 1000Mbps - that's 100 times faster than most current connections - the network will make uploading and downloading files effortless and cloud computing, remote data storage and seamless VOIP will become the norm. Through our competition, some of Peterborough's charitable organisations are now able to take advantage of these benefits too." Rob Baldacci, Director of Businesscoms, added: "We work with a lot of charities and have seen how connectivity is becoming vital to their productivity, particularly in terms of communication and fundraising. We're delighted to be providing free gigabit speed internet over the Peterborough CORE and look forward to seeing the benefits it delivers to each of the five competition winners." Gigabit speed services are now available to purchase directly from Businesscoms, CityFibre's local internet service partner. Contact Businesscoms on 01733 896824 to find out more.