Commsworld invests £1m in Edinburgh to Glasgow network

An Edinburgh-based telecoms network provider says it is competing with top names in the tech industry by investing more than £1 million setting up its own ultra-fast connection between Scotland's two biggest cities.

Commsworld boss Ricky Nicol described the inter-city network as a 'major and exciting step forward'. Picture: Phil Wilkinson

Commsworld, founded in 1994 and now with more than 70 staff, says it is the first Scottish firm of its type with its own inter-city “carrier” fibre network, with independent telecoms businesses usually leasing bandwidth on the top of other related resources.

The connection between Edinburgh and Glasgow, operating at up to 5,000 times the speed of an average UK broadband connection, exists between two of Scotland’s highest-performing data centres, the recently launched £200m Fortis site in North Lanarkshire and Pulsant’s in the west of Edinburgh.

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Chief executive Ricky Nicol called the move a “major and exciting step forward for our business”, adding: “We are enabling some of Scotland’s top legal outfits, tech firms as well as life sciences and public sector organisations to do incredible things on our network.”

The firm, which is the official launch partner of the Edinburgh “gigabit city” project, said the new connection offers the likes of wholesale access for other communications providers and “almost unlimited scope for growth in an increasingly data-reliant world”.

Chief technical officer Charlie Boisseau added: “We are already looking to establish further long-haul dark fibre routes, including options to provide a secondary Glasgow-Edinburgh network as we look to become a telecoms operator of real scale.”

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