Telecommunications

Digital Network

Latest research by BT has revealed that Birmingham has emerged as the leading regional wireless city in the UK. Use of Birmingham’s wireless or ‘wi-fi’ broadband network has increased by more than 45 per cent since the network was launched by BT and Birmingham City Council in autumn 2007.

To view the complete press release, click here.
 
The impressive increase has propelled Birmingham ahead of other major cities, such as Newcastle and Liverpool, according to new figures released by BT’s Wireless City programme.

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Birmingham is indeed living up to its Second City status, with the use of outdoor, high-speed wi-fi second only to the City of Westminster in London, and the weekly number of users regularly running into the thousands.

The whole of the city now offers 100% digital coverage and all new companies setting up in Birmingham are automatically connected to this latest technology. Key network services such as ISDN2, ISDN30, Broadband access, SDH and ATM Technology are widely available, offering companies a complete package of state-of-the-art telecommunications applications.

Birmingham offers excellent access to high-bandwidth fibre optic routes. Resilience can be obtained using Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) self healing technology and by dual parenting, providing access to two of the many local exchanges available in the area.

The city is also at the forefront of BT's roll out of ADSL technology. This will provide high speed “always on” connections to the internet. E-business applications are widely supported with a broad range of products and solutions available from numerous suppliers. These cover areas such as web enabled supply chain solutions, secure trading environments, and Managed Business Services such as shared service centres and e-markets, creating “open” electronic trading communities.

The state-of-the-art business and technology parks at Birmingham Parklands and Masshouse are pre-provided with a business continuity communications infrastructure ideal for the inward investor looking for a fast business set-up.  The infrastructure can cater for any potential voice or data business applications, and offers virtually unlimited capacity to handle future growth.

The sites have an exceptional state-of-the-art optical fibre network infrastructure, including broadband communications; Internet Protocol (IP) technology hosting and applications; mobility solutions; next generation switching; and enhanced exchange capacity sufficient to cope with a company's ongoing communications demands.

To address business continuity, each site also has pre-installed dual optical fibre network infrastructure from the customer back to both the primary and secondary exchanges, so that, in the unlikely event of one exchange or network failing, there is still service to the other.

The Digital Birmingham Programme

Launched to Birmingham’s business sector in May 2006, Digital Birmingham is a city-wide cross-sector alliance of public, private and voluntary organisations, helping Birmingham make the transition from an industrial city to a digital city .The initiative aims to accelerate Birmingham’s citizens, communities and businesses up the digital curve to increase prosperity, knowledge and quality of life.

In particular, Digital Birmingham will help the city be competitive in the global marketplace, whilst ensuring that the benefits are seen and reaped on a local level. Hence its strap line ‘Going Global Looking Local’.

Digital Birmingham’s mission is to see Birmingham recognised as a leading European digital city by 2010.

For further details, click here.

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