YouFibre, one of the fastest growing full fibre broadband providers in the UK is proud to announce a milestone achievement as the first ISP to take a 400G port at the London Internet Exchange’s (LINX) regional interconnection hub in the North – LINX Manchester.
This strategic upgrade underscores YouFibre’s commitment to delivering unparalleled and ultrafast connectivity following impressive growth over the last 12 months, more than doubling their customer base.
LINX Manchester is an Internet Exchange Point for the North of the UK and serves as a critical meeting point for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), content networks, media, gaming, finance and enterprise to meet via a single cross connect to share traffic for low latency end user experiences.
The regional IXP operated by LINX has experienced growth of its own lately with multiple traffic peaks, tipping the 700Gbps mid-February to then be extremely close to 800Gbps following the latest Call of Duty and Fortnite gaming updates.
Colin Peckham, Interconnection Manager for LINX and LINX Manchester Lead comments:
“Manchester continues to evolve as a key digital hub and we are seeing new networks connecting into LINX Manchester for more efficient network routing and content delivery as well as existing members, like YouFibre, increase their capacity….”
Colin continues:
“Our Internet Exchange Points across the UK are designed exactly the way that YouFibre are utilising them. Taking a 10G or 100G port at each site in London, Wales, Manchester and Scotland to keep their traffic local. This is especially valuable when our LINX membership fee of £100 per month includes at 10G port with 2Gbps of service at each location for this reason.”
This development aligns with the broader industry trend of ISPs adopting 400G technology to meet escalating data consumption and the need for faster, more reliable internet services.
Sam Defriez, Network Director at YouFibre comments on their pioneering adoption of this technology in the UK:
“We have been monitoring our network traffic growth on a regional level and we’re always looking to stay ahead of user demand, especially in big moments like a gaming update, which has driven our decision to install 400G ports in key locations, starting in Manchester. We will be looking to roll out to more locations through 2025.”
YouFibre’s rapid growth is supported by its partnership with Netomnia, the full-fibre network operator that provides the underlying infrastructure enabling YouFibre’s services. With over 2 million premises serviceable, Netomnia’s developing wholesale platform enables ISPs like YouFibre and brsk to deliver ultrafast broadband services to homes and businesses across the UK.
The LINX Manchester networking community is accessible from five data centres across the metro; Equinix, Datum, Pulsant, Lunar Digital and AtlasEdge. Networks meet at the IXP regardless of which data centre they are co-located, creating more opportunities for effective network routing.