'˜Lightspeed' broadband could be coming to Northampton after '˜city' of underground cable is bought by firm

Back in the early 2000s Yorkshire-based Kingston Communications (KC) installed thousands of metres of glass fibre optic cables around Northampton with the hope of rolling out ultra-fast internet in the town.

But the firm never sold the infrastructure here to a provider - until now.

London-based City Fibre has now acquired the 45km of dormant glass fibre optics and wants to roll gigabit-per-second speed broadband out to businesses in Northampton.

Moulton Park’s Database for Business (DBfB) will act as the service provider for the scheme and is hosting a launch event at Franklin Gardens tonight.

Chief executive of the firm, Simon Pickering, said: “This is transformational technology for businesses in Northampton.

“It will allow then to access technologies that have been un-affordable previously.

From our point of view we are bringing big city technology to Northampton.”

City Fibre has already launched similar schemes in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Milton Keynes among others.

The two companies are now working with former Northampton South MP Brian Binley to try and attract businesses to sign up here.

“This will be able to get stuff down the line in the sort of speed we have never experienced here in Northamptonshire,” said Mr Binley, who is due to speak at tonight’s launch event.

“It is lightspeed technology that will bring us back in line with the rest of Europe.”

To begin with the super-fast internet would only be available to businesses, but DBfB says there is a possibility it could be rolled out to homes in the coming years.

The launch event tonight is set to be attended by a host of businesses in Northampton and is due to commence at Franklin Gardens at 5pm.