Glide connects Proximity Edge 8 data centre to Birmingham dark fibre ring

Glide Group has connected its rapidly expanding dark fibre infrastructure with Proximity Data Centres Limited’s newly acquired Birmingham edge colocation data centre.

Proximity is the UK’s fastest growing regional edge colocation data centre provider. The new dark fibre network directly connects Proximity’s growing base of enterprise business, cloud provider and content delivery customers to Glide’s 30 km fibre ring spanning the City of Birmingham enabling access to a growing range of diverse low latency dark fibre connectivity solutions.

Glide’s dark fibre infrastructure connection will enable Proximity Birmingham (Edge 8) to ensure thousands of businesses across the West Midlands have reliable access to low latency, highly responsive applications and services.

Glide’s dark fibre connection also provides Proximity with an additional network route into the Proximity Birmingham (Edge 8) edge data centre. This allows leading national and regional carriers and service providers to leverage the network to offer their own dark fibre and managed ‘lit’ connectivity solutions across the region to their customers.

“The availability of diverse dark fibre connectivity is vital to ensuring our edge colocation customers’ data and applications are always seamlessly and securely available to the users that require them,” said John Hall, Managing Director – Colocation, Proximity Data Centres. “Our connection to Glide’s network means our customers now have an increasing choice of dark fibre routes available to them at our Birmingham facility and straightforward access to carriers and service providers serving the West Midlands region and nationwide with dark fibre and managed lit services.”    

Sean Lowry, CTO, Glide Group, said: “Glide’s dark fibre connection to Proximity’s edge data centre in central Birmingham is highly strategic to our growing presence in the West Midlands. Their data centre is located within easy reach of our fibre ring as well as all the major fibre networks traversing the UK. It is ideally positioned for helping us meet the connectivity requirements of local enterprise businesses, retail parks and education campuses as well as hyperscalers, CDNs and gaming providers requiring low latency and optimised data backhaul.”

Proximity Edge 8 in Birmingham is part of Proximity’s expanding UK network of interconnected regional edge data centres which also includes sites in Bridgend, Swindon, Nottingham, Rugby, Liverpool, Chester Gates and Wakefield. The company expects to have 20 sites available within the next 12 months, all in close proximity to major conurbation areas.