The £17m network under your feet - take a look at Kettering's new Gigabit-capable broadband installation

Kettering is set to benefit from a £17m full fibre internet boost with a new town-wide network investment by CityFibre.

With construction of Kettering’s full fibre network well under way, the company welcomed the town’s MP Kettering Philip Hollobone for a tour of its newly-installed hubs.

When finished 50,000 premises in the Kettering area will be able to access the 100 per cent fibre optic infrastructure for Gigabit-capable broadband connection, with room for expansion.

Project leader James Cushing said: “Kettering residents will be excited about being some of the first in the country to get this service. So far 15 per cent of people can already get it.

"Kettering is on the same build order as cities like Leicester – part of the second wave of construction.”

The new system uses cables containing tiny fibres – each one no bigger than a human hair just 0.9 microns wide – to carry data at light speed all the way from the home to the point of connection. This gives users speeds of up to 1,000mbps for upload and download, with the promise of ‘near limitless bandwidth’ and ‘reliable connectivity’.

Housed in a Fibre Exchange nerve centre in the town, the network cables go from the main unit into smaller exchanges green metal boxes with ‘nodes’ branching out to cover streets across Kettering, Burton Latimer and Barton Seagrave. Phase one will see cables dug in shallow trenches under the pavement, with nodes and grey inspection chambers installed.

Mr Cushing said: “The Fibre Exchange like a very, very powerful torch and the router in the home is like a light sensitive receiver. Currently it’s on a Gigabit but if we choose to we can upgrade to 10 Gigabits. The fibre system is capable of 1,000 Gigabits.

"On average customers will get eight times the download speeds and 40 times the upload. It’s a PON network – a Passive Optical Network – so there’s no power in the nodes. If there’s a power cut it still works."

About 450 homes are attached to a primary node, with, in turn, 48 to 50 using the secondary nodes. The infrastructure will be used by internet service providers with the company currently working with 10 different firms including TalkTalk and Vodafone.

In both Kettering and Wellingborough, six teams of three sub contractors ‘boots on the ground’ builders are installing 40m of underground ducting each day, under the supervision of Damian Du Prez from Rothwell and Corby’s Peter Toft.

Mr Du Prez said: “It’s tricky avoiding the sewer, water, gas, electricity and other fibre networks.”

Mr Toft added: “We do get the occasional ‘pop’.”

As more people work from home and streaming services improve, 21st century digital infrastructure is seen as vital for business and leisure users.

Mr Hollobone said: “CityFibre's £17m private sector investment in Kettering is set to make our town one of the best connected for ultrafast broadband in the whole country.

"This is a vital infrastructure upgrade for our local area and will make Kettering an even better place to live, work and enjoy life.”