YORK is set to enjoy the fastest city wide broadband in the country thanks to a new partnership.

City Fibre, which provides the fibre infrastructure for the York CORE project, has teamed up with Sky and Talk Talk to create a new network delivering speeds of one gigabit (1000 Mbps) across the city.

This will be the first time a UK city has been connected with such high speeds on a city-wide basis, with the parties set to name two further cities that will follow York in getting the ultra-fast network.

The project will be an expansion of the York CORE project, which was launched initially to connect public sector site on a single network in the city. The venture between City Fibre and City of York Council was then opened up for businesses to join the network with the 119km fibre now connected 179 sites.

Once the new ultra-fast network is in place, Sky and TalkTalk will retail competing broadband services over the new infrastructure.

The joint venture plans to work with global technology provider Fujitsu which will install the pure fibre-to-the-premise network, with the first York customers to be connected in 2015.

Greg Mesch, chief executive of CityFibre, said: “This partnership is great news for UK plc. Working with two of the largest and most forward-thinking service providers in the UK we will continue to extend our existing metro fibre infrastructure and introduce a new generation of gigabit speed services to homes and businesses.”

The announcement of the partnership marks the start of a six month planning process, with the entire network estimated to take around two years to fully install.

Councillor James Alexander, leader of City of York council said: “This announcement makes York the digital infrastructure capital of the UK.

“Gaining ultra fast broadband across the city is a huge boost for our economy; providing significant new opportunities for businesses based here and better quality and value to our residents.”

Further details about the new service in York, including branding and launch date, and Sky and TalkTalk’s customer propositions and pricing, are yet to be confirmed.

CityFibre, Sky, and TalkTalk will each have an equal 33.3 per cent equity stake in the new company.