It’s just 18mm wide and made of tiny glass fibres, yet this insignificant looking cable promises to transform our lives and our economy.
Being laid across 212km of the Liverpool City Region by LCR Connect, a 50% publicly owned joint venture, the ultrafast full fibre cable will offer internet speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second (Gbps).
To put that in context, speeds of just 1 Gbps make it possible to download an hour-long HDTV show in nine seconds, consigning waiting for the spinning ‘wheel of doom’ to the digital dustbin.
Work is underway across the Liverpool City Region to lay the fibre-optic infrastructure that is aimed at business customers and will generate an initial £105m for the local economy.
Experts estimate that, with 100% full fibre coverage across the city region, the economic boost could be worth up to £1bn, creating thousands of local job and training opportunities.
When complete, it will put city region businesses in prime position to lead the way in a host of growing sectors, from health and life sciences to Artificial Intelligence and advanced manufacturing. It could also potentially transform public services, including transport and health services.
Fibre-optic cable allows us to have unlimited information at our fingertips, but how fast is fast?
- Connectivity speeds are measured in bits per second. The bigger the number of bits per second your connection is capable of, the faster it can send information. The maximum capacity is known as bandwidth.
- In terms of speed, one gigabit per second (Gbps) is equal to 1,000 megabits (Mbps). At 10Mbps it takes around 15 mins to download an hour-long HDTV episode. At 30Mbps it takes 4.5 minutes however with a 1Gbps service, one episode could be downloaded in 9 seconds, or 100 episodes in 15 mins.
- LCR Connect will offer reliable ultrafast connectivity, with speeds ranging up to 100Gbps depending on the service chosen.
- That means downloading and uploading big files will take seconds rather than minutes
The cable is being laid by LCR Connect, a £30m joint venture, 50%-owned by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, led by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, in partnership with North West-based ITS Technology Group, who are leading the project, working with construction partner NGE, who are managing the build and roll out of the network.
To find out more about how to benefit from LCR Connect click here
