Coventry & Warwickshire in business
City Fibre
Connectivity Crucial to Recovery
D
igital connectivity was high on the Government’s agenda long before anyone had heard of Covid-19, but when the global pandemic struck, it only served to highlight the crucial need for world-leading digital connectivity across the UK. Leigh Hunt, Regional Partnership Director at CityFibre said: “Not only is digital connectivity underpinning economic and social inclusion, widespread home working and technology adoption today – it will drive the economic recovery going forward.” CityFibre, the UK’s third national digital infrastructure platform, is continuing its £60m digital transformation in Coventry. Work to roll out full fibre started in the north of the city in 2018, moving into the centre last year and has now expanded to the west, including parts of Westwood, Earlsdon, Canley and Tile Hill. The work being undertaken will go a long way toward helping to achieve the Government’s vision for gigabit-capable connectivity to every home and business by 2025 and 5G to the majority of the UK by 2027. The vision is ambitious – and it is achievable – but only with a concerted effort.
Research* has found that slow internet connection speeds are a key barrier to industrial digital adoption, particularly amongst SMEs. And commercial building tenants deem good connectivity to be vital for business performance. In addition to improving the performance of lowproductivity businesses, digital connectivity plays a wider role in addressing societal issues such as cutting carbon emissions by reducing need to commute. Nation-wide gigabit-capable connectivity could allow 400,000 more people to work from home, giving greater flexibility over where they live. In 2020 the number of those working from home doubled, putting a huge strain on our legacy ‘copper’ infrastructure network as household members with competing priorities tried to educate themselves, work, stream, and game simultaneously. A year later, living with the new normal has meant that for many of us good quality digital connectivity is vitally important to ensure that we can go about our everyday lives - and that is where full fibre comes in. Full fibre broadband provides the highest level of connectivity, speed, near unlimited bandwidth and has much greater reliability, but it is currently available in less than 20% of homes nationally.
However, Coventry bucks that trend and by being one of CityFibre’s first gigabit-cities, the build is progressing well. Moving forward, the reliance on state-of-the-art connectivity is only going to increase and having this future-proof digital infrastructure will stand the city in great stead as it continues its evolution into a renowned digital hub with world-class connectivity, and the UK begins to tackle economic recovery during these unprecedented times.
To register your interest or check to see if you can connect to a full fibre network visit www.cityfibre.com/Covchamber *Made Smarter Review 2017 – led by Jurgen Maier
Stress free internet Enabled by CityFibre’s network From flexible homeworking, streaming the footy or using apps to help life run smoothly. Great connectivity can give us all a boost. That’s why we’re building a new full fibre network, which enables empowering technologies both now and for decades to come. Find out which broadband providers are available in your area.
www.cityfibre.com/Covchamber
www.cw-chamber.co.uk
37
