At International Telecoms Week 2024 in Maryland today, RETN will announce it has expanded connectivity to Manchester, connecting to the Equinix (now Lunar) and Datum data centres in the city.
The expansion, it says, will help bring lightning-fast, secure, and high-availability internet to ISPs and businesses in the city, and follows a series of investments in RETN’s international backbone across Europe.
RETN’s connectivity ring will link Manchester with existing networks in London, Slough, Dublin, and to mainland Europe via the Paris Crosslake subsea cable, a low-latency route opened recently, London-Amsterdam, and London-USA, offering businesses both domestic and international access to RETN’s extensive global internet backbone as far as Beijing in the blink of an eye.
RETN highlighted Manchester’s importance as a major UK hub for domestic and international network connectivity, and its vibrant tech ecosystem, with sectors like cybersecurity, eCommerce, gaming, artificial intelligence, and FinTech all well represented, as the reasoning for the expansion.
The expansion will not only benefit businesses in Manchester. RETN said it plans to bring its comprehensive suite of services closer to businesses across the Northern Powerhouse region through the enew Manchester Points of Presence, including local ISPs, managed service providers, content providers, Altnets and enterprises with office locations in the region.
“Manchester’s status as a key digital hub aligns with RETN’s mission to improve communication and connectivity, underpinned by our core principles of transparency, flexibility, agility, and responsiveness,” said Chris Elliott, UK commercial director at RETN.
“By expanding our services in this dynamic city, we’re dedicated to offering secure, private, and reliable connectivity solutions that empower both local and international communities, driving growth and innovation in every market we serve,” Elliot continued.
Services offered by RETN will include layer 3 IP Transit, dedicated internet access (DIA) and layer 2 VPN Ethernet services, to provide redundant access to its points of presence across Europe and Asia, which totals over 870.
RETN, which is majority-owned by UK-based investment fund Njord Partners, is one of the fastest growing independent global network services providers, with unique resources to connect Europe and Asia. In 2023 RETN was awarded the ‘Best Pan-European Carrier’ title, at the Global Carrier Awards. Offering a wide range of connectivity services, such as IP transit, Ethernet & VPN, Capacity, Remote peering to major IXPs, Colocation and Cloud Connect, RETN’s network runs on leading equipment vendors such as Infinera, Juniper and Ciena.
