Digital Connectivity

Manchester’s strategic location in the centre of the country, at the intersection of the UK’s highly resilient “figure-of-eight” fibre optic network, makes the city a principal digital access point for the north of England; capable of supplying all the networking and IT resources needed to succeed globally in business, including dense telecommunication connectivity to other major UK cities, the US and Europe.

Independent telecoms networks are also available throughout Manchester, based on multiple resilient dark fibre rings linked to the major data centres in the region.

Many of the city’s key developments and office schemes have access to speeds of up to 10Gbps and there are excellent national and international fibre networks via the Hibernia Atlantic Cable Network Internet Exchange. Plus, IX Manchester offers conventional peering services at speeds of 100Mbps, 1Gbps and 10Gbps from four Manchester data centres.

Manchester has the digital infrastructure necessary to be a world class digital city region – including 5G coverage – and provides businesses located here with the right connectivity no matter their technical requirements.

MIDAS, Manchester’s economic development agency, provides a free, confidential and bespoke package of services to help companies understand how relocating to or expanding in Manchester could be a successful business move. To find out more, get in touch with the MIDAS team today.

In March 2020, Greater Manchester secured funding from the UK governments’ Full Fibre Network Challenge Fund to develop its world-class digital infrastructure through the biggest government full-fibre investment in the UK; appointing Virgin Media Business to deliver up to 2,700km of new fibre optic broadband infrastructure across the region.

MediaCityUK’s high-speed fibre network makes it one of the best-connected media hubs in Europe – in addition to being the second most connected place in the UK, after BT Tower.

Vodafone switched on its full trial of 5G technology at MediaCityUK in October 2018, making it the first area in the UK to get commercial 5G coverage.

The firm also opened the Vodafone Innovation Hub in May 2019 at MediaCityUK ‘s The Landing, giving UK businesses, start-ups and tech innovators access to 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), high-speed fibre and the very best technical resources available and making it the ideal testbed for product development.

Manchester is at the forefront of developments around cloud computing, with companies including Cisco, Oracle and Dell EMC operating out of the city, the majority of which are developing innovations from Manchester. Also, a key part of IBM’s new Manchester lab is looking at virtualised environments for cloud computing.

Several hosting and collocation providers such as Equinix, UKFast and Daisy Group have also invested also in new data centres in Manchester to support cloud computing.

Full networking capability is available at all employment locations throughout the city centre and services are delivered by a wide range of providers ensuring competitive costs. The choice of carriers available to businesses in Manchester’s key locations includes BT, Virgin Media, THUS and TalkTalk.

Get in touch with MIDAS, Manchester’s inward investment promotion agency, to find out how the team can help your business make the most of the city’s digital connectivity.