York’s business community to benefit from UK’s best digital connections

The City of York Council has partnered with CityFibre to spark the next generation of connectivity services for York’s business community. The York CORE, recently launched at the York Business Week by James Alexander, leader of the City of York Council, is a state-of-the-art 103km pure fibre optic network, running throughout the City of York. It can be used by internet service providers to offer affordable, high-quality and ultra-fast business services throughout the city and surrounding areas. The network is ‘open access’ enabling multiple internet service providers to offer vastly improved services to new or existing customers. Services will be launching in the first quarter of 2013, via the growing list of service provider partners, which already includes Pinacl and York Data Services. A full range of services will be available for all business types and sizes, from entry-level business broadband to dedicated fibre connectivity. The pure fibre network means that businesses can gain access to unparalleled download and upload speeds, unbeatable reliability and ultra-low latency. These benefits will help businesses operate more effectively by getting more done in less time, enabling them to transfer larger files faster and take full advantage of an ever-growing choice of cloud-based services. The future-proof, flexible pure fibre network ensures that services are capable of supporting the needs of York’s business community both now, and in the future. The York CORE is central to the City of York Council’s ambition to become the ‘Digital Infrastructure Capital of the North’. Already connecting over 110 sites including council offices, schools and data centres with gigabit speed services, it has enabled the City of York Council to transform its service delivery model. Businesses interested in finding out more are encouraged to register their interest on The York CORE website at www.theyorkcore.com and take part in a brief survey to help partners and service providers understand requirements and set price points.. Cllr James Alexander, Labour leader of City of York Council said: “We have worked hard over the last year to significantly up our game on digital infrastructure and we have built relationships with private sector infrastructure providers, encouraging them to invest in York. “We now have a future-proof digital infrastructure, built in partnership with CityFibre and capable of supporting all the elements of a modern city, now and in the years to come. This supports our aim of positioning the city as the digital infrastructure capital of the North and in the top 10 mid-sized cities in Europe.” Mark Collins, director of regulation and public policy at CityFibre added: “Our long-standing partnership with the City of York Council represents the essence of CityFibre’s vision for towns and cities throughout the UK. Recently awarded the NextGen12 Award for Collaborative Advantage, the pure fibre network in York is only just beginning to demonstrate its full potential to transform the way that the City of York operates and communicates in a truly digital age. We are now extending the network out to offer the business community the opportunity to take advantage of the benefits that a pure fibre infrastructure can bring. We would welcome discussions with service providers keen to make use of this unique pure fibre network.” The pure fibre network roll-out will be planned to reach the areas with the greatest demand first. The initial focus of The York CORE is to connect business premises, but long-term plans are to extend the pure fibre connectivity services to the residential community with a fibre-to-the-home network. ENDS Media Contact: Alex Henshall / Caroline Hitchen Good Relations Group T. 01625 500800 E. cityfibre@Insightmkt.com About CityFibre CityFibre (www.cityfibre.com) is one of the UK’s leading fibre optic infrastructure providers. By building dedicated fibre optic networks for the public and private sectors, we empower data-hungry users throughout the country, by unleashing unlimited speeds on future-proofed technology. Our transformational fibre infrastructure projects comprise point-to-point connections, metro rings and Fibre-to-the-Premises networks that make possible Next Generation Access and gigabit level services direct to local authorities, businesses and homes. CityFibre manages over 100 private fibre projects and seven separate metropolitan fibre rings under long-term contracts with local authorities, police forces, healthcare organisations and universities. With almost 30,000km of fibre in the ground, connecting more than 350 sites and data centres across the UK, we are the country’s largest independent provider of fibre in secondary cities. In Bournemouth, CityFibre owns the largest FTTH project in the UK. With over 21,000 homes in marketing now, the network enables service providers to deliver unprecedented superfast broadband with speeds of up to one gigabit per second.