Manchester is probably the best established connectivity hub in England outside of London.  It was also the birthplace of Telecity.

The Manchester data centre industry was initially established as an off-shoot to Manchester University, who began to sell surplus colo space in their IT department on a commercial basis.  This lead to the creation of two companies, one being IFL, Internet Facilitators who were up until recently owned by the university and the second company being no less than Telecity, whose founder Mike Kelly was originally  Business Development Director at the university and this is why Telecity's first data centre is in fact their small Manchester site which was opened near the university on the Manchester Science Park.  It whilst at the university that Mike approached 3i in 1998 with his plan to create a pan-European colocation provider.

Posted on October 30, 2011