MediaCityUK’s High Speed BT Network

MediaCityUK have announced their plan’s to connect businesses and residents to one of the most advanced communications networks in the world when the first phase of the £500 million complex is completed in 2011.

Peel Media, the developers and owners of MediaCityUK, today awarded a multi-million pound, five-year communications and IT contract to BT Business, the division of BT Retail that serves the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses.

All of MediaCityUK’s tenants, including the BBC, The University of Salford and Northwest Vision and Media, will be able to benefit from a high capacity, high bandwidth resilient network, designed specifically to meet the needs of the media industry. The new network has potential to deliver speeds of up to 10 gigabits, making the digital hub as connected as media clusters in cities like Dubai and Singapore.

The network will enable high definition video to be transferred seamlessly across the site along with high quality business Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, file sharing, movies, digital signage, telepresence, cloud computing , building management services and many more applications and services.

Bryan Gray, chairman, Peel Media, said: “This state-of-the-art communications infrastructure will pave the way for MediaCityUK to become one of the most digitally advanced communities in the world.

“Drawing on BT’s wealth of technical experience and expertise, we are confident this will lead to an exciting partnership and further innovation within the sector.”

Mike Blackburn, BT’s regional director for the North West, said: “With speeds of up to 10 gigabits available on the new purpose-built network, this partnership will provide one of the most advanced communications infrastructures of its kind, tailored to meet the specialist needs of the lcoal media community, which demand higher bandwidth in order to thrive during this exciting digital era.”

The five-year contract will see BT start network installation later this year.

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