Connectivity for new data centres. Same week to a budgetary quote. Same year to live.
Sicom has audited, designed and delivered new-build DC connectivity across the UK — including a 15-site evaluation for an AI infrastructure operator with 6GW of planned computing power. Four sites picked. Four 100Gbps links delivered. On time, on budget.
A separate finding in the same survey: 95% of operators said new high-capacity fibre will determine their next expansion decision.
If your build is in the 82%, this page is the one you wanted six months ago.
Source — NEOS Networks / Censuswide, October 2025
When fibre is an afterthought.
We work it the other way round. Before you commit to a site, we map the carriers in the area, audit the routes to confirm they’re genuinely diverse, price the wayleaves, and give you a budgetary number. Most of that co-ordination — with Openreach, the carriers and the site builders — is work other suppliers leave to you.
For new-build data centres.
Six things that decide whether the fibre’s ready when the build is — from the first route audit to lifetime monitoring.
Diverse routes — audited, not assumed
Two carriers entering through different meet-me points may still share the same external duct for much of their route. We audit the physical paths and confirm diversity before you sign anything.
100Gbps and 400Gbps to the building
We’ve delivered 4×100Gbps links to a new-build AI DC. The 400Gbps capability is in our designs today.
Multi-carrier by default
Openreach for last-mile where the duct already exists. National carriers for high-bandwidth backbone. Regional altnets where the route demands it. We pick the combination. We don’t sell our own network because we don’t have one.
Wayleaves handled in advance
We start the wayleave conversations early — before the build’s critical path needs the fibre to be there. Delays of four to six weeks on a single wayleave aren’t unusual. We don’t want yours to be one of them.
Surveyor on site within the week
The team that quotes the work is the team that surveys the site. No three-month gap between desktop study and a person in the road.
RADAR™ for the lifetime
Once the network is live, RADAR monitors every fibre every few seconds. We see the fault location on a GIS map before you ring us. Free for clients on long-term support agreements.
15 sites evaluated. 4×100Gbps delivered. 6GW of computing power.
A new start-up AI data centre company — with significant funding and land — approached us to evaluate 15 sites from a connectivity viewpoint. We provided costs and timescales to connect each site with at least two diverse links, and ranked the sites so the management could easily see which were best.
We then moved on to a detailed design phase for a short-list of sites. That gave the client what they needed to set a site budget and build a business plan.
The client ordered the connectivity. We delivered it on time and on budget. The work involved extensive co-ordination with: Openreach (physical fibre access and connectivity), a national carrier for the 4×100Gbps links they specified, and the on-site builders of the data centre infrastructure.
“We’re delighted with the expert advice and support we have received from SICOM, which has enabled us to prioritise locations for the roll-out of our planned 6GW of computing power. SICOM has worked closely with our site contractors and project management to ensure that the local infrastructure has been installed to meet the needs of the site.” — A leading AI infrastructure operator (client name confirmed at review)Read the full case study
You paid for two routes. You might only have one.
Buying a second “diverse” connection is how you stay online when the first one’s cut. But if those two routes share the same underground duct for part of their journey, a single contractor’s digger takes both down at once — and you’re paying twice for resilience you don’t have. It happens more often than you’d think, because the routes get sold as diverse far more often than anyone checks they’re diverse.
Two contracts. Same duct. One digger.
Two carriers, two contracts, two invoices — two fibres entering the building at different points. Looks diverse. Then both fibres run through the same trench for a couple of miles and rejoin at the same exchange. One dig in the wrong place severs both, and the building goes dark despite the “resilient” second line you paid for.
Routes mapped and proven before you sign.
We map the physical path of every route we design and show it to you on a map next to the quote. If two routes touch the same duct anywhere along their length, you see it — and we re-route — before the contract is signed, not after the outage. The same mapping is what RADAR™ uses later to pinpoint a fault.
If your second route was sold as “diverse” and nobody showed you a map, you don’t actually know it is. Ask to see the route map.
We’ve delivered.
Carbon-Z — Swindon
Multi-100Gb connectivity into an immersion-cooling colocation DC. We surveyed every carrier and dark fibre route in the Swindon area and presented the options with costs. Carbon-Z picked the combination. We delivered it.
GCRE — South Wales
A modular data centre on-site at Europe’s premier rail innovation facility. We found multiple connectivity options to the government network, other data centres, the internet and Cloud Service Providers. Openreach was contracted to provide diversely-routed multi-fibre cables between the site and two local exchanges, ahead of the DC opening.
Midlands DC — survey for sale
A privately-owned DC needed to demonstrate carrier optionality to prospective buyers. We surveyed the area, found several carriers nearby that could be connected diversely, and costed it at under £100,000. The survey added many times that to the site’s sale value — buyers knew four or five carriers were achievable.
Diversity and resilience
The guide every data centre buyer should read before signing a ‘diverse’ second route. What real resilience looks like — and how to prove it before the contract, not after the outage.
- Why two contracts can still share one duct
- What to ask for to confirm a route is genuinely diverse
- How route-auditing and GIS mapping prove it on paper
Send us the postcodes you’re evaluating.
We come back with a desktop survey and a budgetary number — same week for the bigger ones, same hour or same day for the straightforward ones.
Or download a free guide