As one of the first cities in the UK to benefit from VX Fiber’s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), open access model, the partnership between VX Fiber and Stoke-on-Trent City Council signifies a milestone as part of the City Council’s drive to transform Stoke-on-Trent’s digital landscape.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council predicts that gigabit connections will create a staggering £625m boost to the local economy over the next 20 years, by making firms more competitive, attracting inward investment and jobs, improving homes and more.

The innovative project aims to use the City Council’s existing private optical network ducting and extend that to create a 60-mile system, that will make full-fibre gigabit broadband connectivity available to residents and businesses across the city.

The City Council chose to partner with VX Fiber based on a number of key differentiators: it’s pioneering partnership approach with local authorities which enables councils to monetise their own infrastructure alongside VX Fiber for a state-of-the-art network that serves the entire community; VX Fiber’s open-access approach inviting multiple service providers enabling customers to choose from several independent service providers; and the mechanism to effectively market, sell, install and maintain connections to this infrastructure to residents and businesses via its subsidiary LilaConnect.

Mikael Sandberg, Chairman at VX Fiber: “We’re delighted to include Stoke-on-Trent as one of our first UK city investments, and we are looking forward to many more similar partnerships across the UK.”

Stoke-on-Trent Gigabit City Brochure (click here)

www.lilaconnect.co.uk/stoke-on-trent/