London is one of the world’s busiest digital hubs. Data centres in areas like Shoreditch, the Docklands, Slough, and Hayes handle vast volumes of traffic every day, powering the city’s financial markets, cloud platforms, media companies and enterprises. These facilities are vital for organisations that require secure, low-latency connectivity and scalable infrastructure to meet surging digital demands.
Bandwidth requirements in London are growing at a rapid rate, with the city widely recognised as a leading global hub. In January 2026, The London Internet Exchange (LINX) achieved its highest-ever network traffic with a maximum peak of over 12 Tbps, up from 10.8 Tbps in 2024 and 9.2 Tbps in 2023, with peak traffic growth likely to continue into 2027.
With more organisations across industry verticals relying on colocation and cloud services, ensuring seamless, high-capacity connections between metro data centres is more important than ever.
The network technology that is stepping up to meet this huge growth is Wavelength. Wavelength services provide dedicated optical paths across the city, enabling businesses to connect sites reliably and efficiently, with ultra-low-latency and predictable performance.
According to The Business Research Company, the optical wavelength services market size grew to $5.73 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach a value of $10.22 billion in 2030, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3%.
Wavelength services are fast becoming the network technology of the future, delivering the ideal balance of scalability, performance, and reliability that modern digital ecosystems demand. As enterprises, hyperscalers, and service providers move ever larger volumes of data between data centres, clouds, and edge locations, wavelength offers dedicated, protocol-agnostic, ultra-low latency optical paths that can scale seamlessly to 400G and beyond.
Unlike shared Ethernet services, they guarantee predictable performance, strong security isolation, and transparent support for multiple protocols – making them ideal for AI workloads, financial trading, real-time applications, and global content delivery. With the exponential growth of cloud, AI, and digital media, wavelength will increasingly underpin the critical, high-capacity backbone of tomorrow’s networks.
Meeting London’s Growing Data Demands
The concentration of data centres in London presents both challenges and opportunities when considering network services. These clusters or hubs are home to major exchange points, including peering hubs that handle traffic from across the UK and further afield, as well as hosting workloads from hyperscalers, enterprises and cloud providers to name a few.
The UK’s tech sector is a major contributor to the national economy, with over £101 billion in gross value added (GVA) and a projected growth of 8.9% over the next three years, according to a 2025 report by techUK.
The city’s dense digital landscape means traffic between sites can be extremely high, particularly as more businesses adopt multi-cloud strategies, AI applications, and other bandwidth-heavy workloads. Congestion or latency across these networks can have a huge impact on businesses across different sectors like financial trading, as well as media companies that rely on consistent performance for live streaming and content delivery.
At the same time, expanding fibre networks and connecting multiple data centres can be expensive, complex and time-consuming. It’s important for service providers and enterprises to scale connectivity quickly when demands are high, without having to build their own networks from scratch. That’s where wavelength services complement colocation services.
Enhancing Metro Connectivity Across the City
Colocation data centres form the backbone of high-performance networks, both physically and operationally. They offer secure, managed space where enterprises and service providers can deploy servers, networking equipment, and storage – while benefiting from shared power, cooling, and security infrastructure to maximise resilience and trust.
London’s top colocation hubs are strategically located to maximise connectivity. High volumes of carriers and service providers in these campuses allow businesses to establish multiple, redundant connections to other data centres, cloud platforms and international networks.
Linking London’s Data Centres with Wavelength
Wavelength services offer a private, dedicated optical path between key sites, providing predictable performance and high capacity.
This is especially critical in London, where linking multiple colocation hubs can enable seamless data transfer without congestion or disruption. Alternate routes provide resilience if one path is busy or encounters a fault, which ensures business continuity without service downtime.
For example, a financial firm in Canary Wharf can connect to multiple colocation sites across Shoreditch and the Docklands, supporting trading systems, disaster recovery and cloud access, without compromising on speed or reliability. Similarly, media companies can transport live video feeds between data centres and cloud platforms efficiently, enabling high-quality streaming to global audiences.
By combining wavelength with colocation, organisations gain a scalable, flexible solution for interconnecting sites across the city. Providers can expand their networks rapidly in response to customer needs, while enterprises can grow operations without heavy investment in physical fibre or complex infrastructure.
To find the right colocation and wavelength provider, it’s important to look beyond just rack space and power. Businesses should examine whether the colocation facility can provide direct access to major carriers, cloud service providers and Internet Exchanges, in order to make the most of the opportunities that these partners bring to the table.
Disaster recovery and redundancy are also key to consider, with N+1 redundancy, backup power, fire suppression and physical security helping to mitigate risk. Compliance is equally essential. Colocation data centres with certifications like ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and SOC 2 help to ensure operational integrity and data protection.
An expert partner will also bring a deep understanding of optical networking and Layer 1 connectivity, and a robust network backbone with diverse routing to support stronger, smarter, and more resilient networks.
Future-Proofing City Connections
The demand for high-capacity, low-latency connections across London is not slowing down any time soon. AI, multi-cloud and edge computing are increasing traffic between data centres. At the same time, enterprises are increasingly seeking redundant, low-latency pathways to support real-time services, and cloud providers are continuing to expand their footprints in London.
Together, colocation and wavelength services provide the foundation for this growth. Metro networks with multiple interconnect points allow businesses to scale without disruption, deliver seamless customer experiences, and access cloud and edge platforms efficiently.
By combining wavelength and colocation, organisations gain the scalable, reliable, and future-ready connectivity that underpins London’s digital economy. This infrastructure empowers service providers and enterprises to innovate, grow, and respond to market demands at speed – ensuring the city remains a world-leading digital hub for years to come.
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