Broadband boost for digital businesses in St Helier

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Telecoms provider JT and Digital Jersey are working together to get a group of digital businesses in St Helier connected to the new fibre broadband network before the end of 2014.

While the fibre network is scheduled to be installed generally in town in 2016, Digital Jersey has identified an initial group of businesses in the digital sector that would benefit from earlier connection to the new fibre network. JT will now be working on completing this initial group of installations before the end of this year.

“We are fully aware of how important the digital sector is to Jersey’s future economic growth and diversification, and having a fibre network connecting all broadband customers will be essential in driving that. Digital Jersey’s feedback has been really helpful, and we are pleased to be able to get these businesses connected up to two years ahead of schedule," said Dave Newbold, Gigabit Director for JT.

Jersey’s fibre broadband network is on track for completion as planned before the end of 2016. So far, 7,600 customers have been connected, and 879,000 metres of cabling have been laid. The project has provided jobs for 114 locally qualified people.

Building the new fibre-optic network is a major civil engineering project, costing £41m and taking five years to complete. It is an entire replacement of the previous telecoms network, which uses copper cabling, and for which installation originally began in the 1920’s. Copper cables are limited in the broadband speeds they can provide, and will not be able to cope with the predicted growth in demand for internet-based services. The new network means that people in Jersey will be able to keep up.

Digital Jersey would like to hear from any other businesses that would like to be connected to the fibre network earlier than currently planned (the installation schedule can be checked on JT’s website: http://www.gigabitjersey.com/about-gigabit/where-and-when.aspx).