The latest progress report on the Manchester Digital Strategy makes interesting reading.
Released last week by Manchester City Council , the report signals its intention to make Manchester a “Next Generation Digital City” and install broadband with speeds up to 1,000 times faster than those presently available.
It also proposes “that Manchester takes a national lead” by establishing the UK’s first ‘fibre to the premises’ (FTTP) open network.
The feasibility study for the work, kicking off along the Oxford Road Corridor , was due to be completed and published this month.
This will be followed by an application for funding to start putting in high speed data networks for up to 50 businesses and about 400 homes in the Oxford Road area at a cost of about £550,000.
After that, the plan is to extend digital development into other areas, such as East Manchester, with an emphasis on creating employment opportunities.
The full report can be downloaded in this Pdf .
What do you think of the strategy? Let us know below.
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Dim Sum Digital 
So 450 premises get fibre to the door at a cost to ratepayers of approx £1,000.
If the costs continue to be of that order how could the council roll-out its programme to anyone else without bleeding the council tax payer dry?
Also what about the step costs for maintaining the servers and networks?
I know a number of people who are on the Eastlands network at the moment. If it upgrades to fibre will the whole network management improve?
Obviously I’m all for a hugely quicker broadband, online games will be that much faster! I’m also a fan of minimal cost of having braodband.
I’m concerned that this iniative, whilst headline grabbing and good news, doesn’t just stop because of an inability to invest and get people to join in.
After all who wants to drop out of Virgin Media’s current fibre to the premises speeds unless we get proof in our own back garden?
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