'Lightning-fast' broadband and knowledge jobs bring Hull's digital city dream closer to reality

Hull - the digital city. It’s a concept that has been talked about for years without ever seeming to move significantly closer to reality, but maybe that is finally about to change.

Recently, I’ve detected some very exciting digital developments which could be profoundly important for the prosperity of the city and wider region, transforming employment opportunities and the economic landscape. All the talk at business meetings may be about Siemens and renewables, but something else is stirring which some have claimed may be just as significant.

The digital city concept had at its core the presence of a unique, local telecoms provider in KC and the availability of a network ripe for development to provide the infrastructure - or so-called plumbing - for major developments in education and business.

That concept gained credibility from the late 1990s as a result of the launch and development of Kingston Interactive Television (KIT), KC’s ground-breaking internet television service delivering video on demand and TV streaming via broadband. It was a truly pioneering service which was hugely ambitious in both its technology and objectives. In truth, it was way ahead of its time.

KIT was wound up in 2006 because KC could no longer justify a huge investment, which had come too early for commercial viability. But it had some significant outcomes, including that it was a key reason why the BBC chose Hull as the base for a major regional centre and it was used by the corporation as the testbed for a number of innovative interactive services, which informed later developments such as Freeview.

Now KC is again leading the way in developing digital infrastructure. This time, the company has embarked upon on a programme to install “lightning-fast” broadband across its East Yorkshire network. It’s early days, but the new service, KC LIghtstream, is delivering remarkable results and winning customers fast.

After relatively small-scale trials in Woodmansey, near Beverley, and Hull’s Great Thornton Street Estate, KC has begun a major rollout, starting in Beverley, and now has more than 800 subscribers for a service that guarantees broadband download speeds of 100 megabits per second (mbps), which is four times faster than the Government’s definition of “super-fast” broadband.

Just last week Beverley was declared the broadband capital of the UK, with the fastest speeds in the country. Speed test site Netindex showed Beverley as the fastest UK broadband location, with an average download speed of 43 mbps – nearly six times the UK average - as a result of the KC Lightstream performance.

The remarkable speeds are delivered because the data travels down fibre-optic cables fed through to customers’ homes, replacing traditional copper connections. KC is stealing a march on other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as BT, by installing Fibre To The Home (FTTH), rather than Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) - a connection box in the street. Elsewhere in the UK, connections are slowed down by copper cables for the last part of the data journey. In Lightstream premises, speeds are not constrained and the technology is future-proof, enabling acceleration of download speeds as demand for digital data and content grows.

The results seen already are impressive - users of the new service can download music albums in just two seconds, hour-long television programmes in 31 seconds and high-definition films within two minutes. It’s truly a revolution in accessing information and entertainment in homes which now frequently have multiple digital devices  being used at the same time.

But this new network is potentially even more significant in terms of its power to enable the development of East Yorkshire’s emerging digital sector. It has been interesting to note Hull’s growing credentials in this sector - in website and app development, gaming, social media and other disciplines. Indeed, that capability and credibility will be showcased this weekend (17th & 18th March) at Platform 2012, an event at the University of Hull focused on the huge gaming industry.

Quietly, Hull is gaining ground as a centre of knowledge jobs, with technology a key element, supported by high-quality educational establishments, such as the university and Hull College. Also important in this picture is the Hull Digital community of entrepreneurs and developers, which plans its own significant event, HD LIve, at the university on 1st November this year.

Factors are coming together to accelerate this welcome development of technology-based and enabled jobs in the knowledge economy - jobs that will be vital to achieve a re-balancing from public to private sector and blue to white collar employment.

KC’s commercial and financial director Sean Royce talked about this change recently when setting out the benefits for businesses of the Lightstream rollout.  The huge boost to broadband capability will encourage start-ups and SMEs focused on activities such as online retailing, app development and gaming.

Mr Royce pointed out that digital industries already generate £130 billion for the UK economy - 10 per cent of gross added value - and employ six per cent of the workforce. The sector also continues to grow, despite the economic climate. It’s a trend the Government recognises and wants to encourage. It plans to commit £780 million to support the development of super-fast broadband and mobile provision across the UK  to help to deliver a world-class digital infrastructure. Estimates are that the investments by Government and the private sector could create 600,000 new jobs and pump £18 million into the UK economy.

One local digital entrepreneur, John Connolly, wrote in a recent blog on the Hull Digital site that the rapid development of the local broadband network will enable businesses to work and communicate in new, faster, more efficient and effective ways, including through home and remote working. His view was that the Lightstream network would be “the backbone of business and education in the city for years to come”, enabling the development of exciting new enterprises and ways of learning.

And, although large-scale employers, such as Smith & Nephew, Reckitt Benckiser and, indeed, KC,  are hugely important to the East Yorkshire economy, SMEs are the real backbone of UK Plc, providing 60 per cent of private sector jobs.

So, while the headline news is how Siemens, the burgeoning offshore wind industry and other forms of renewable energy will bring new prosperity to Hull and the Humber, it’s not the only story of economic potential and job creation. No doubt renewables will continue to hog the headlines, but the development of digital infrastructure, businesses and jobs may be just as vital over the long term.

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