The Manchester City Council had announced last year that it would be setting up a new Fibre to the Premises network in the area. According to the latest news from the council, the network has been approved and installation will soon begin. The work will start later this month with Oxford Road being one of the first few areas to get the new service.

After the initial stages for the installation of the FTTP networks is over, the focus will shift to spreading the network to neighbouring regions. The Central Park District will soon have its very own new Internet Hub, while a rollout will also take place in the East Manchester area. The launch is part of the Next Generation Digital City Project, which aims at giving better digital communication services through the use of state-of-the-art wireless systems and advanced fixed line broadband.

The superfast broadband service promises to deliver speeds to residents and businesses of up to 100 Mb, which is significantly faster than the existing networks in the area.

Neil Swannick, Executive Member for environment said after the announcement that it was necessary to make high-speed wireless broadband services accessible to all at rates that they could afford. He added that unless cities in the UK can match both the quality and the prices of broadband services in other major cities in Europe, they would always remain on the back foot in terms of business competitiveness.

The residents of Manchester are going to welcome the news of the network, but until the prices of such services become more reasonable across the UK, their adoption rates would always be on the lower side.