Newcastle City CouncilNewcastle City Council

Summary

Newcastle City Council partnered with SCC to transform digital connectivity across the city centre, delivering a modern, high-capacity public Wi-Fi network that supports residents, visitors and local businesses.

Built on the Council’s expanding dark fibre infrastructure (also delivered by SCC), the solution delivers seamless, reliable connectivity while enabling smart city ambitions, improving public safety and driving digital inclusion. The programme reflects a long-standing, collaborative partnership, combining SCC’s technical expertise with the Council’s in-house capabilities to deliver a scalable and future-ready digital platform.

Challenge

Newcastle City Council needed to modernise its digital infrastructure to meet growing demand for reliable, high-performance public connectivity. The existing Wi-Fi provision offered limited coverage and inconsistent performance, while the underlying network also needed to support enhanced CCTV capabilities and future smart city initiatives. Delivering this upgrade presented additional complexity due to the constraints of a busy urban environment, including historic locations and challenging installation conditions, while requiring minimal disruption to businesses across Newcastle.

At the same time, the Council wanted a solution that could be managed internally, aligning with its existing technical strategy and making best use of in-house expertise.

Solution

SCC worked in close partnership with Newcastle City Council to design and deliver a city-wide wireless network, underpinned by a robust dark fibre backbone and Cisco-based architecture.
SCC was selected for their ability to design a solution that the Council could manage and operate internally, complementing in-house skills rather than replacing them. Jenny Nelson, Assistant Director for IT, Customer Contact and Digital Transformation at Newcastle City Council, said:
“SCC know our environment. They knew the outcomes that we were looking to achieve, and they were able to bring skills and commitment in order to make that reality. We have a really strong track record of working with SCC, and that’s been really evident in the delivery of the Wi-Fi project.”
SCC’s experience, technical expertise and strong understanding of the Council’s existing environment, developed through a long-standing partnership, ensured the solution was both flexible and aligned to long-term strategic goals.
The solution focused on:

• Extensive surveying, modelling and design work to optimise coverage, capacity and performance across a complex urban environment.
• Deployment of a high-capacity Wi-Fi network to support public access and CCTV connectivity.
• Integration with Purple WiFi to deliver secure guest access, simple onboarding and advanced analytics.
• Use of the Council’s expanding dark fibre network to provide fast, resilient and scalable connectivity.

During implementation, SCC worked alongside Council teams to continuously refine the network design, responding to environmental constraints such as historic infrastructure and busy city locations. Ongoing analysis of access point performance and user behaviour enabled iterative optimisation, ensuring a reliable and seamless experience for end users across the city centre.

Outcome

The new City Wi-Fi network has delivered significant improvements in connectivity, user experience and city-wide digital capability.

Key outcomes include:

• Significant expansion in coverage, providing consistent indoor and outdoor connectivity across the city centre.
• Fast, free and reliable internet access supporting residents, visitors and local businesses.
• Improved digital inclusion, enabling access to essential online services for users without reliable mobile data.
• Strong early adoption, with over 7,500 new users and nearly 5,000 repeat users recorded in a two-week period.
• Modernised CCTV infrastructure supported by high-capacity, resilient connectivity to enhance public safety.

“We’ve had fantastic feedback from residents and local businesses about their Wi-Fi connectivity. People really value the coverage, the speed, the ease of connectivity and their ability to get online to do the things that they need to do in their day to day life.”
— Jenny Nelson, Assistant Director for IT, Customer Contact and Digital Transformation, Newcastle City Council

A clear example of the impact can be seen at Grainger Market, where delivering modern connectivity had previously been constrained by the building’s listed status and infrastructure limitations. By extending dark fibre into the site and enabling high-quality Wi-Fi alongside upgraded CCTV connectivity, the Council has created a more secure and connected environment for visitors and traders. This has resulted in improved customer experience, longer dwell times and increased footfall, while also enhancing public safety and supporting digital inclusion through free, reliable access to connectivity.

The solution provides a scalable platform for future growth, enabling planned Wi-Fi expansion, advanced analytics and wider smart city integrations to help Newcastle City Council deliver a more connected, accessible and digitally enabled city.