Work is underway to make Sheffield a gigabit city.
CityFibre is building a new full fibre broadband network in Sheffield.
CityFibre might be a company you haven’t come across before, but they’ve been working constantly throughout the pandemic to lay a full fibre broadband network that will bring gigabit speeds to homes and businesses across Sheffield. It’s a huge project, but they’re making great progress – with more streets being built every day, and the first live connections expected by Summer 2021.
This is a game-changer for Sheffield because full fibre is the fastest and most reliable broadband available – and CityFibre is one of the only companies doing it here. In fact, even if you think you have full fibre, you probably don’t, because while lots of providers use the terminology “fibre” and they might use fibre-optic cables, they don’t always replace the ones that run from your street directly to your house, which means you’re still using outdated copper cables.
With CityFibre, “full fibre” really is full fibre; even the cable from the street to your home is fibre, so when you ask for a gigabit connection, you get a gigabit connection. And it’s not just speed. Full fibre broadband is up to five times more reliable than alternatives, there’s no such thing as “peak times” meaning it’s less likely to slow down when lots of people use it at the same time, at any time in the day, which is great news for busy homes with lots of devices trying to use the internet at the same time.
In the UK, we’re now online for an average of 21.5 hours per week. From Teams calls to online shopping and internet banking, home schooling and gaming, it’s become an essential part of our lives – and we’re always finding new ways to use it. With the latest technology, you can control your heating, turn on your dishwasher or even do a load of washing, all through an app, so a good connection is needed to be able to cope with our modern-day lifestyle needs.
Most of us think of broadband in terms of download speeds, but what do those speeds really mean? With a gigabit connection, you can download a high definition film in under a minute and get the latest video games, which can be over 100 gigabytes in size, in just 10 minutes. That’s fast. It’s not just download speeds that are fast, with CityFibre, the upload speeds are just as fast. You can upload photos, files and videos in the blink of eye, making the most of cloud solutions like Dropbox.
The full fibre infrastructure they’re laying in the ground now will last for generations and help to power the city’s growth. They’re future-proofing the city’s connectivity, which means the cables they lay today will open up a world of opportunities in the future. It’s great for Sheffield, it will provide the fast, reliable connection needed to harness new technology and become a smart city.
CityFibre is already building its full fibre network in Sheffield. Construction work started in February 2021, some homes will be able to access the CityFibre network from Summer 2021, and they will be expanding out across the city.
So how do you get it? CityFibre is a wholesale provider, they don’t sell directly to the public. Instead, they make their network available to popular ISP providers like TalkTalk and Vodafone. They have, however, made it easy for you to check if your home is already connected to their network. Their postcode checker will tell you if it’s available, if it’s being installed or if it’s in the pipeline. And if it’s not available yet, you can register your interest to find out when it will be.
