Research by SSE Enterprise Telecoms forecasts an 88% growth in network demand from London businesses between 2019 and 2020, while demand from regional businesses is forecast to grow 20% over the next two years. The priority for the “vast majority” of businesses will be to have access to on-net services to help reduce IT estate costs and support an increase in cloud adoption the study found.
The research revealed that 25% of service providers will increase their networks up to 100Gbit/s from 2020. In response, SSE is unbundling 177 BT exchanges, providing access to an additional 180,000 UK business postcodes. All 177 exchanges will have 100Gbit/s capacities to meet the demand for higher bandwidth. The first 51 exchanges are already on-net, with priority being given to the most densely populated metro city areas, such as London.
SSE is also launching five optical-enabled data centres, serving areas where on-net access is expected to be in high demand and enabling businesses to access public clouds directly. These are located in:
- Northampton (Node 4)
- Milton Keynes (Pulsant)
- Hemel (Gyron, Centro)
- Stockley Park (Virtus 5)
- Newport, Wales (Next Gen Data)
