The vision for W&B is a ‘Smart and Healthy Digital Town’ that has an open digital platform and network to foster creativity and innovation, economic growth, inward investment and social inclusion for connected residents and ambitious businesses.
There is an overarching ‘fully fibre’ strategy that encompasses a 5G-ready infrastructure, public Wi-Fi, integrated town centre services (Access Control, CCTV, Fire, Traffic Control and IoT sensors), an integrated TV and radio reception system and Gigabit Broadband.
This is a design for multiple services that is future-proof and ensures that everyone will enjoy world-class connectivity.
This strategic approach to the communications provision is designed to attract the most ambitious start-ups and businesses to a hi-tech community where they can connect, grow and collaborate alongside some of the best minds and innovative businesses in the UK.
It will also enable key public facilities within the development (e.g. Bordon & Oakhanger Sports Club) to be connected to the Smart Town network on the day they open – that goes for businesses moving in too.
This is a future-proof strategy, which will provide an open network that is accessible to all telecoms providers and ISPs that will migrate seamlessly – for instance, should the Whitehill & Bordon Regeneration Company wish to sell the asset in the future, it will be adoptable by BT Openreach, Vodafone or an altnet (e.g. City Fibre).
A critical element of the plan is ensuring that there is sufficient resilient network capacity connecting Whitehill & Bordon to the global Internet and national and international data networks. With forecasts of network traffic trebling over the next five years, we envisage the required capacity for Bordon will grow to in excess of 40Gbps over the life of the development phase.
All avenues are being pursued to ensure the success of the Smart Town Centre credentials, a connected community for the most demanding residents and tenants, which will continue to be so throughout life.
