Partner Article

New venture brings broadband 'superhighway' to Gateshead

Gateshead Council has joined forces with an international telecoms company to connect one of its biggest employment sites to the international business broadband superhighway.

Alcatel-Lucent Telecoms, one of the world’s largest telecoms companies, has joined Gateshead Council as partner in a new joint venture company to develop a high-capacity open access network to serve the Baltic Business Quarter development.

The partnership, called Gateshead Technology Innovations Ltd (G-ti), was announced last week at this year’s Broadband World Forum Europe in Brussels, the international IT industry’s premier conference and trade show.

When complete, the state-of-the art optical network will support services such as video conferencing, video on demand, streaming media, data storage and protection, disaster recovery and image processing. The system will boast massive bandwidth and built-in resilience of a standard only available in very few locations in the UK, and as good as the best in the world.

Work has already started on the installation of miles of underground fibre optic cables right across the Baltic Business Quarter site. The system will reportedly be up and running by early Spring next year.

Leader of Gateshead Council, Councillor Mick Henry, said: “We want the Baltic Business Quarter to be a showcase development with the best communications technology available today, as part of a compelling overall package offering the infrastructure that top class organisations need to do business here.

“Our aim has always been to attract major employers to create high quality jobs and make Baltic Business Quarter an unparalleled location for creative industries. Today’s announcement puts that aim right on track.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .