Bristol Is Open — Programmable City Network Testbed

🤖 AI-generated summary · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-06

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means

Bristol and its university built a city-scale programmable network testbed in 2015. The joint venture lasted about three years. The council owns the company outright and calls it dormant — Companies House still lists it as active.

Outcome📉 Scaled back

Evidence🏛️ Officialgrades the sourcing — this entry states no impact figure

what does this mean?

The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →

Run byBristol City Council (BristolIsOpen Limited; originally a joint venture with the University of Bristol)

Scale🏙️ City-wide

FundingUK Super Connected Cities programme (Building Digital UK) and Innovate UK

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 6 more in Bristol · 📶 Connectivity & 5G guide · 📡 Data & IoT projects

Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol announced Bristol Is Open in March 2015: a city-scale research testbed pairing a fibre ring with a software-defined network, a wireless mesh and later 5G and IoT trials. The joint venture lasted about three years; the university left, and the council-owned company closed out Big Clout, REPLICATE and 5G Smart Tourism. The council now calls the company dormant, though Companies House still lists it as active.

Completed 📅 2015–2018

🎓 Lesson

A testbed is a company as well as a network. When the joint venture behind Bristol Is Open dissolved, the legal vehicle outlived the programme it was built to run — still on the register in 2026, filing accounts, trading in nothing.

📡 Data & IoT Connectivity & 5G Sensors & IoT

Sources

↗ Companies House — BRISTOLISOPEN LIMITED (09302408)Primary register: incorporated 10 Nov 2014, registered office City Hall, status Active. Filing history shows micro-entity accounts for y/e 31 March 2025 (filed 9 Dec 2025) and a confirmation statement made 27 March 2026 — not dormant-company accounts.

↗ Bristol City Council (owner, official company page)"After three years of operation, Bristol is Open came under the sole ownership of Bristol City Council who oversaw the completion of these projects. The company is now dormant." Names Big Clout, REPLICATE and 5G Smart Tourism; funding from Building Digital UK's Super-Connected Cities programme, 2013-14.

↗ University of Bristol (co-founder, launch announcement, 10 March 2015)Launch announcement: fibre, wireless and mesh networks with a software-defined network as "the city operating system"; funders named as the Super Connected Cities programme and Innovate UK.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇬🇧 CityVerve IoT Smart City Demonstrator · Manchester Direct sibling: both UK demonstrators ended on schedule — CityVerve's domain went to a gambling site, Bristol's survives as a shell. 🇬🇧 Glasgow Operations Centre · Glasgow The third of the UK demonstrator cohort, and the contrast: Glasgow's build outlived its programme as a staffed service, Bristol's did not. 🇮🇪 Smart Docklands · Dublin Council-backed testbeds of the same era: Dublin narrowed to one district and a neutral host; Bristol went city-scale and closed.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision 📖 LoRaWAN 📖 Adaptive traffic signals 📖 Air quality index (AQI)

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Bristol Is Open — Programmable City Network Testbed” — Bristol, United Kingdom. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/bristol-is-open/ (last verified 2026-08-06). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

🚩 Report an error · 🔔 Follow changes to this entry (RSS)