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Super Spine Fibre for Greater Brighton
Politicians, academics and business leaders to seek funding to bring faster internet speeds to the Greater Brighton area.
19:33 19 October 2018
Business leaders, politicians and academics are working together to seek funding and create a ‘super spine’ of high-speed fibre-optic links between towns and cities as well as smaller communities in the Greater Brighton area.
Digital expert Simon Hughes said: “What we currently have is 100-year-old technology taking data down a copper wire.
“There are restraints in terms of speed. This is not going to cut it.”
He added: “The reason we need to promote this is to have the technology to last another 50 to 100 years. “Demand we’ve already got is for faster speeds and we need to be able to make it much, much faster.”
Work has started on providing a section between Brighton and Burgess Hill through the Local Fibre Network Fund.
Measures that are being considered are creating a small 115km loop linking Brighton and Hove with key areas in West Sussex, adding local loop around one town by building along 60km of cycle routes and using CCTV ducts to build local networks.
Councils in West Sussex are set to submit a bid to the government to keep 75per cent of the business rates collected in the county to reinvest in ‘super spines.’