IT contractors could see employment benefits from a plan to provide Leeds' business district with a high-speed internet network.

Local telecommunications firm aql have fed fibre optics from one of their Leeds exchanges into strategic buildings across the Calls area of the city.

Businesses in the area will now have the opportunity to experience internet speeds of 100 megabit per second, more than ten times faster than the national average.

The Calls area is home to many of the city's media and marketing agencies. One of these, specialist post-production company VTR North, has trialled the service.

Carl Waters, managing director of VTR, explained how the new connection has helped his business: "We can now upload 40 commercials in an hour to our London based partners, as opposed to 45 minutes per commercial."

Demand has been high since the trial and aql are now planning to expand the service into other areas of Leeds city centre through 2010.

Connection speeds of 100 megabits per second are already available to businesses in London.

In January, Easynet Connect offered this service to small to medium-sized businesses in the capital for an annual fee of £15,000.