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More than 1,000 businesses in the city have now registered to Gig Up Peterborough as the city races ahead in its aim to become the first Gigabit City in the UK.

Ultra-fast internet connectivity has become a reality for the businesses and public sector sites already connected to the city’s new Peterborough CORE pure fibre network.

CityFibre, which launched the Gig Up Peterborough campaign in January and started construction in April, has already built 60km of the 90km network – including the city centre.

The Peterborough CORE will allow the city to compete in the international market and put Peterborough shoulder to shoulder with places such as Stockholm and Seoul in terms of internet connectivity.

Andy Starnes, city development manager at CityFibre, said: “We’ve invested £2.7million in Peterborough since January this year – over and above the cost of building the network – and created several full time jobs. So it’s great to have such amazing support and be able to start delivering on the shared vision of CityFibre and Peterborough City Council in transforming Peterborough into a next-generation Gigabit City.”

Already 67 of the 106 public sector sites, including council buildings, schools and libraries, are connected through service provider, Serco.

Business services are available from four local internet service providers, and the first businesses in the city centre are seeing the advantages of ultra-fast connectivity. Taylor Rose and the Bull Hotel have both now connected through service provider Businesscoms.

The focus has now turned to bringing gigabit speed connectivity to the city’s business parks.

Construction began earlier this month in Fengate following the success of the Gig Up Fengate campaign, which saw almost 200 businesses register their interest in future-proofing their firms. Together they saved £125,000 of combined construction costs, and live services are due in two to three weeks.

The Gig Up Lynch Wood campaign, which launched last month, has also almost reached its target with more than 50 registrations.