As of 10 March, Ziggo will be offering superfast internet with a download speed of up to 1 gigabit per second in Rotterdam, Vlaardingen, Hoogvliet, Pernis and Rozenburg. By the end of 2020, Ziggo will be providing gigabit speeds to over fifty percent of the 7.2 million connections to its GigaNet.
Over 370,000 households and company premises in Rotterdam can switch over to this fast internet connection without delay. This doesn’t require digging up streets and gardens, since the fibre-coaxial network of Ziggo is already in place. After Utrecht, Hilversum and The Hague, it is now Rotterdam’s turn to benefit from gigabit speeds. Overall, this now adds up to over 1 million connections. By the end of 2020, more than half of the 7.2 million households and company premises, connected to the Ziggo network, will be able to benefit from the GIGA package.
In 2019 the Rotterdam cable network was technically prepared for gigabit internet. Ziggo servicemen installed more than 560,000 new connectors in people’s homes and replaced over 53,000 connector cables in 29,214 street cabinets. This amounted to more than 70 kilometres of new network cabling in street cabinets and district switches. Due to these upgrades, superfast internet does not become available on street or neighbourhood level, but can be switched on by Ziggo for entire cities or regions in one go.
A speed of up to 1 gigabit per second comes down to tenfold the average 100 Mbps connection in the Netherlands. It enables family members to watch 4K films and TV programmes on multiple devices simultaneously and download them superfast. An HD film of 5GB can be downloaded in 42 seconds, whereas this would take more than 7 minutes with a normal internet connection.
Ready for the future
"The rollout of superfast internet in the entire Netherlands fits VodafoneZiggo’s ambition to ready the country for the digital future", says Jeroen Hoencamp, CEO VodafoneZiggo. "Under the label of GigaNet, the powerful network of Vodafone and Ziggo, we invest hundreds of millions each year in a stable and innovative network and ‘gigabit without digging' is an important part of that." Besides Rotterdam, the cities of Utrecht, Hilversum, The Hague and Delft already have 'GIGA' at their disposal. Amsterdam, Apeldoorn, Arnhem, Eindhoven, Groningen, Nijmegen, Tilburg and Wageningen will follow soon.
Signal by optical fibre for 97%
In its fixed network Ziggo combines optical fibre and coaxial cable. On average, the road an internet signal takes from, let’s say the studio to a home connection, consists in the case of the Ziggo network of 97% optical fibre. Only the last part, from the district to the home, is made up by coaxial cable. To this coaxial part Ziggo applies the new DOCSIS 3.1 technology, also enabling unlimited high internet speeds with download speeds of already up to 1 Gbps. Within ten years, this technology will even enable speeds of up to 10 gigabit per second. Also upload speeds will increase over time.
GIGA subscription
Ziggo’s latest subscription option 'GIGA' consists of internet with up to 1 Gbps download and 50 Mbps upload, the most comprehensive TV package with the interactive Mediabox Next, Movies & Series, Ziggo Sport, Ziggo GO app and a fixed telephone connection. It comes with an attractive discount for new ánd existing customers. All the benefits of gigabit speed are as of now also available to enterprise customers in the SME segment.