Giganet taps Neos Networks to drive UK gigabit broadband expansion

In a further expansion of its gigabit fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) offerings, UK internet service provider (ISP) Giganet has turned to fibre connectivity supplier Neos Networks to provide backhaul and datacentre connectivity to support its new southern counties network and its ambitious roll-out plans.

In May 2022, as part of a plan to ramp up the deployment of its full-fibre network to eight million homes and premises across the UK, CityFibre agreed a major expansion of its strategic partnership with Giganet, making the latter’s service offering available across the entire CityFibre network footprint. Through such strategic network partnerships, Giganet is looking to offer full-fibre broadband bundles and its next step – on which work began in 2021 – is to target an expansion that will see it cover more homes and businesses, beginning in the south of England using its own network.

Giganet’s plans for its own national network service includes a commitment to providing only full-fibre connectivity and the company aims to have a core network and its first four exchange rings live by end of this year. In the next four years, it plans to build to 300,000 homes across Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset and West Sussex with its own fibre network roll-out.

This network expansion project will see Neos Networks support Giganet to deliver a more than tenfold capacity increase. This increase is underpinned by Giganet’s and Neos Networks’ commitment to support the UK government’s ambition to help satisfy the increased demand for high-speed fibre connectivity.

“Neos Networks rose to the challenge of providing us with resilient and high-capacity backhaul circuits across a wide range of exchanges as well as our core datacentres,” said Giganet chief technology officer Matthew Skipsey. “Using Neos Networks, we have been able to secure connectivity to our points of presence faster than expected, initially enabling each of our first four regional rings with resilient 100Gbps backhaul.

“This means our south coast roll-out is progressing at pace. The ready availability of high-quality resilient connections to our points of presence undoubtedly enabled us to quickly roll out hyperfast, full broadband to a marketplace hungry for improved connectivity.”

Having unbundled 550 BT exchanges at the end of 2021, and expanding its network reach to 34,000km, business connectivity provider Neos Networks believes it is already ahead of the curve in helping meet this ambition and will provide Giganet with the local connectivity required to carry traffic to its datacentres and across its national network.

“Both Neos Networks and Giganet have adopted a collaborative approach to this relationship,” said Neos Networks chief revenue officer Sarah Mills. “This has resulted not only in solutions being delivered faster than ever as the Giganet network grows, but it also gives us the ability to transition connectivity between points of presence without any disruption.

“There is no doubt that by working in partnership with alternative network providers like Giganet, UK residents will benefit from a better, faster and more resilient connectivity.”