JT has been recognised at the Connected Britain Awards, announced at the end of the UK’s premier conference on communications technology this week. The Channel Islands’ largest and only locally owned telecoms operator won the Fibre Connectivity Awardfor its pioneering Gigabit full-fibre network.
In winning the award, JT was recognised above some significant other shortlisted organisations involved in fibre technology, including Digital Scotland, Gigaclear and Grosvenor Group.
The organisers, Total Telecom,described this win as:
“Fibre Connectivity Award: This was another tightly contested category, and one that carried a good deal of prestige, given the UK’s renewed focus on fibre networks. JT Group claimed victory in this category with their ambitious project on the island of Jersey.”
This award is timely as this year Jersey will become the world’s first full-fibre jurisdiction, with every residential and business broadband customer directly connected to a network that offers unrivalled internet upload and download speeds. This achievement was rewarded by the judges, who praised JT’s foresight and commended the way the project was managed and delivered.
JT Chief Executive Officer Graeme Millar, who accepted the award in London, said: “We’re clearly delighted that our Gigabit project has been singled out at such a prestigious event. Choosing to replace our copper network with a full-fibre one back in 2012 was a bold decision to make; however, we’ve always known that it was the right one and it’s obviously pleasing to now receive national recognition for our efforts. JT started the journey of rolling out our network years in advance of the point at which it would be required and we’re now at a place where many other jurisdictions want to be.
“We’ve laid over 3,000 km of individual fibre-optic cable to almost 40,000 homes and 5,000 businesses. With 100 per cent of broadband customers soon to be connected to full-fibre, Jersey will have the highest fibre-to-the-home penetration in the world. That is something the whole island can be proud of.
“Our success at the Connected Britain Awards is down to the cumulative effort of a huge team of people and I would like to publicly thank my colleagues and all our stakeholders for their enduring hard work and support, as well as the support of our customers, whose needs were central to the vision of this project.”
