LCR Connect network goes fully live
Mayor Steve Rotheram has heralded a new digital era for the Liverpool City Region as he celebrated the completion of the area’s flagship LCR Connect project.
The 214km gigabit-capable, full-fibre network delivers some of the fastest internet speeds and will help make the region the most digitally connected area in the country.
It is a half-publicly owned joint venture between the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, led by Mayor Rotheram, ITS Technology Group and NGE.
Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said:
“Since I was elected, I’ve been on a mission to transform our region into the most digitally connected area anywhere in the country. Today that vision is one step closer to becoming a reality.
“The hallmark of any modern, 21st century city region like ours is how it connects people with opportunity. LCR Connect will help us to create thousands of high quality, secure jobs and training opportunities for local people, attract inward investment and ensure that our businesses can keep pace in an increasingly digital world. Best of all it’s half owned by us, the public, so we can reap the rewards of this investment for years to come.
“Our infrastructure has already been put to the test with global cultural events like Eurovision – but this is just the tip of the iceberg of what LCR Connect is capable of. Thanks to devolution, we’re creating a better-connected, more digitally inclusive future for our 1.6m residents.”
Mayor Steve Rotheram was joined at a special celebration, hosted by the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) at Sci-Tech Daresbury, by some of the 350 local companies already benefitting from LCR Connect. The national science and innovation campus is home to the Hartree Centre’s Scafell Pike, the UK’s most powerful supercomputer dedicated to industrial R&D and was the first location to install LCR Connect.
A further 400 city region businesses are in the process of being connected to the network.
Experts estimate LCR Connect will deliver an initial £105m boost to the local economy and that, with 100% full fibre coverage across the city region, the economic boost could be worth up to £1bn, creating thousands of local job and training opportunities.
The LCR Connect network, which has been built and rolled out by construction partner NGE, will provide more than 28,000 local businesses and organisations with access to switch from copper line or more expensive fibre services to a new, competitively priced gigabit-capable service – a 1Gb circuit from LCR Connect is about £700 cheaper per year than the average, saving businesses £3,500 over five years. Switching to a 10Gb circuit via LCR Connect can typically save £5,000 in annual charges.
In addition to the immediate cost savings, businesses and organisations benefit from full fibre connectivity by improving productivity. Better connectivity brings access to new business processes, increases the speed and reliability of data transfer within and between businesses, with the ability to access agile cloud-based services.
It is already making a huge difference to local businesses, such as the M&S Bank Arena, where the network played a key role in delivering the Eurovision Song Contest.
