Sponsored post: Chester has become a gigabit city – City Fibre’s mission to supply fibre broadband to every corner of Chester
You may have seen the name CityFibre across Chester; from their bright green mini driving around, to attending the last Taste Cheshire Farmer’s market in 2021, they’ve made a big effort to be present in the city’s winter activities. They also had a pop-up stand at the Christmas Markets and sponsored the Roman torch-lit Saturnalia Parade, which celebrates the giving of light and marches through Chester as part of the Winter Watch Parade. CityFibre will be working with Cheshire West and Chester Council, One Chester Bid, Marketing Cheshire and a number of other key stakeholders in the city to see how they can get involved with the city across 2022.
All of their activity has been to raise awareness about the work they’re doing in Chester; they’ve been installing a Full Fibre broadband network that will bring gigabit speeds to homes and businesses across the city. It’s a huge project, but they’re making great progress – with more streets being built every day, and the first live connections expected soon via Air Broadband.
This is a game-changer for Chester, because Full Fibre is the fastest and most reliable broadband available – and CityFibre is one of the only companies doing it here. In fact, even if you think you have Full Fibre, you probably don’t, because while lots of providers use the terminology “fibre”, they often use copper cables, which means you’re using older and less reliable technology.
With CityFibre, “Full Fibre” really is Full Fibre; even the cable from the street to your home is fibre. It’s not just the speed that’s better; Full Fibre broadband is up to five times more reliable than alternatives, and there’s no such thing as “peak times” meaning it’s less likely to slow down no matter what time of day it is, or if lots of people use it at the same time, which is great news for homes across Chester that are suffering from buffering, streaming and poor connection.
Some of us think of broadband in terms of download speeds, but what do those speeds really mean? Gigabit speed itself means it’s capable of up to 1,000Mbps, and that’s for both download and upload speeds! Put simply, with a gigabit connection, you can download a high-definition film in less than a minute and get the latest video games, which can be over 100 gigabytes in size, in just 10 minutes! You can also upload photos, files, and videos in the blink of eye, making the most of cloud storage solutions like Dropbox.
You might be wondering where CityFibre are working in Chester currently, or how you’ll know when they’re coming to your street; you’ll be able to spot the teams in action in Upton currently, and Hoole and Newton before too long and then into the city centre. We will have reached nearly every home and business locally, within the next 18 months. CityFibre use digital advertising on social media and door knocking where applicable, to inform residents that they are in the area and will be building soon, they will also post a letter through your door before construction is due to start in your street, so you know to expect them.
So how do you get it? CityFibre is a wholesale provider, they don’t sell directly to the public. Instead, they make their network available to a range of Internet Service Providers, Air Broadband will be the first official service provider to launch in Chester, with more service providers to follow. To check if your home is already connected, use CityFibre’s postcode checker (below). This will tell you if the network is being installed or if it’s in the pipeline, or if it’s not available yet, you can register your updates to find out when it will be.
The Chester blog 