Wildcard FibreConnect

We have been told Openreach is bringing fibre broadband to the area years ago, but we haven't heard or seen anything since. Here at Wildcard this is something that we hear regularly from our customers and partners. Often areas like this are held in the ether of Openreach's roll-out with very little in the way of simple answers of when businesses and home owners can access high-speed, reliable fibre broadband. FibreConnect is Wildcard's solution that provides fibre broadband to areas with a dedicated and transparent roll-out strategy.

The service offers speeds of upto 100Mbps download in FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) areas and 200Mbps download in FTTP (Fibre To The Premise) areas. The technology used is based on what is best for the location ensuring the service is affordable and provides great performance to the end-user.

Wildcard FTTC FibreConnect cabinet installation at Orion Business Park

 Orion Business Park located in North Shields recently had Wildcard's first FTTC cabinet installed giving over 50 businesses access to high-speed, affordable broadband. Installation costs for customers are kept low by using existing BT phone lines to connect to the cabinet. Even with the FibreConnect service using the line, customers can continue to use their telephone services as before.

 Next Wildcard is planning a FTTC roll-out to parts of North Tyne Industrial Estate aimed completion is before the end of 2017. Similar to the installation at Orion Business Park access to customers will be provided through BT phone lines avoiding any hard to swallow installation fees.

How do I get FibreConnect in my area? It's simple, just register interest for your area by emailing info@wildcard.net.uk or contact us on 0333 344 8088 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm)and tell us where you are and that you want FibreConnect (a feature for this will be added to our new website expected this summer). Once we get a little bit of interest from your area we will do the rest, scoping out the full scale of demand, how it would be achievable and when we would be able to get it up and running. So get your neighbors and community groups in touch!

Reliance House Data Centre Phase 2 Works

Phase 2 works at our Reliance House data centre are nearing completion bringing upgraded cooling capacity, scalability and intelligent control to our HVAC system. Along with this, the building's facilities are also being revamped including a new breakout room for customers to work and relax in. The breakout room will contain a sofa seating area and TV along with a desktop terminal for customers to work remotely on their systems outside of the noisy data centre environment whilst being close to their equipment in the event that something goes wrong. Other facility changes include a general aesthetic improvement throughout the compound and building. Pictures are to follow once the works have been completed. Subscribe to be kept up to date on the latest at Wildcard Networks.

Wildcard’s 10Gb NTT IP Transit Goes Live

Earlier this week Wildcard added NTT to its IP Transit Providers alongside its Level3 and Cogent 10Gb transit. The addition of which brings further resilience, diversity and network capacity to the network ensuring Wildcard’s data centre Reliance House stays one of the best connected data centres in the North East of England.

NTT Communications is a global leader in ICT solutions with its global tier-1 network ranked among the top five networks worldwide reaching major countries in Europe, North America, Oceania and Asia through a single AS.

The addition of NTT brings Wildcard’s external transit capacity to 40Gb alongside IX Manchester and LINX (London Internet Exchange) connections with peers including Apple Inc., Virgin Media and Microsoft Corporation.

LiveWave Broadband - Coverage Extended

I'm pleased to announce that work has been completed on our latest business transmission point, this transmission point will extend coverage of our LiveWave Broadband service (which provides up to 40Mb Superfast Business-Grade Broadband Internet access) to new areas including:

• Newburn & Newburn Riverside
• Blaydon
• The Watermark (Metrocentre Riverside)
• Newcastle Business Park & Scotswood Road

This latest transmission point also dramatically improves our coverage of the Team Valley Trading Estate.

LiveWave Broadband is available through our network of local partners, if you wish to hear more about LiveWave please don't hesitate to contact us on 0845 165 1510.

Funding secured for further LiveWave Wireless Broadband deployment at Newton and Bywell, Northumberland

Our LiveWave Broadband service provides high-speed wireless broadband to areas that are unable to access high-speed Internet. We can presently delivery up to 40Mb broadband speeds using our standard service (with higher speeds available on our enhanced managed wireless service). Our service up until recently has centered around business customers unable to achieve the speeds they require (in particular upload speeds).

Recently we deployed a wireless trial providing access to residents of Newton and Bywell in Northumberland, this has been a huge success and interest has been much greater than expected. Local community enterprise Newton and Bywell Connects (chaired by local resident Anne Moyle) has been pivotal in moving this forward, and has secured additional funding from the Big Lottery Fund to further allow the roll-out of the LiveWave service to more residents surrounding the village. The press release below explains more:

A Northumberland community is bringing its own solution to their broadband woes with help from the Village SOS Big Lottery Fund. The residents of Newton and Bywell have secured £10019 of grant funding under the Village SOS scheme, which is to be used, in part, to develop their broadband services.

Anne Moyle, local resident and chair of Newton and Bywell Connects explains: “A Parish planning exercise was undertaken last year, involving all 148 households in the parish. From this, it was clear that inadequate broadband services and rising fuel charges were the two biggest issues for our community. We have now formed a local member scheme to obtain bulk buying discounts on fuel and have looked at various alternatives to address the broadband situation”

The group formed a community enterprise and initially applied for funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) under their Rural Community Broadband Fund. Unfortunately, this early bid was unsuccessful. Undeterred, the group applied to the Village SOS scheme, operated by the Big Lottery Fund, which has now proved a success.

Anne explained: “We began a test phase earlier this summer to provide a wireless broadband service in partnership with Wildcard Networks. Wildcard have been providing a wireless broadband network to the nearby Newcastle University site at Nafferton Farm and offered to extend this to 20 properties in the parish. The first homes were connected at the end of August, and the results have been excellent.”

The funding from the Village SOS project will allow the community to install wireless relay hubs throughout the parish, essentially creating a wireless mesh to extend the reach of the network to more properties.

Anne added: “We now provide a free internet service from our community hall where we consistently achieve download speeds of 20 mbps and upload speeds of 8 mbps. This is in a totally different league from what we could expect with the previous service where most of our residents achieved less than 1mbps. Working in partnership with Wildcard under their LiveWave Broadband service we will extend this service to more homes in 2013.”

The rest of the grant funding is to be used to offer a range of support to local residents including computer and internet training, as well as promoting the activities of the Community Enterprise. With an enthusiastic group within the Parish it means that they have a number of plans for the forthcoming year.

Anne added: “We’ve come a long way with the project so far. By attempting to resolve the broadband issue we have brought together residents of all ages and

moved onto discussions about other issues that are important to our community.

The award of the Village SOS grant has shown what working together and determination can achieve. “

The Reliance House Datacentre - Work well underway

I'm pleased to announce that work on our second Newcastle upon Tyne datacentre facility 'Reliance House' is well under way. The facility is located within minutes of the city centre and benefits from improved security and connectivity options.

Over the past few weeks major civils works has taken place to bring connectivity to the site. The facility is located around 150 metres away from a major fibre route out of the Newcastle city centre, where numerous third-party providers have fibre (including C&W, Geo, Level3). We took the decision to employ directional drilling as opposed to trenching the 150 metres required to install a private duct back to our facility - this will be used by the providers to bring their fibre optic cables directly to our site.

The work was undertaken by a specialist firm and completed within a day, as opposed to the 4-5 days predicted for trenching the same run - with significantly less disruption. It was impressive to see the drill head appearing in the receive pit 150 metres away with pin-point accuracy!

Other work included on-site duct installation for BT Openreach, Virgin Media, and Northern Powergrid (who will supply utility power to the facility from the adjacent sub-station)

In the coming weeks work will be concentrating on the internal fit out with internal power distribution, fire suppression and flooring systems being installed.

LiveWave expands Northumberland coverage

Wildcard Networks are pleased to announce that during July 2012 our LiveWave product delivering high speed broadband speeds using wireless technology will expand further into Northumberland along the A69 corridor. Commercial services are available to order now through our network of IT partners, with residential packages available to order online in the coming weeks.

Additional transmission equipment will be installed during July and will provide key coverage of Newton, Bywell, Stocksfield, and extended coverage as far west as Hexham. Speeds of up to 30Mb will be available on residential packages and 40Mb on commercial packages.

We were contacted at the beginning of the year to provide a demonstration of the LiveWave service by Anne Moyle who chairs the Newton & Bywell Connects social enterprise. Local residents in Newton struggle to achieve 1Mb using traditional broadband technologies, at the demonstration we achieved 40Mb utilising temporary radio equipment. It's thanks to the local community and the social enterprise whom we've been working closely with that this project is going ahead.


If you require further information please contact us on 0845 165 1510 or email info@wildcard.net.uk