Rotherhithe Campaigners Accuse BT of Broken Fibre Broadband Promises

The Broadband SE16 campaign group has accused the local council and BTOpenreach of failing to live up to their commitment to deliver faster “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) connectivity to 4,000 Southwark premises by March 2016. “Not a single person in Rotherhithe has benefitted,” said the group.

The residential district of Rotherhithe in south east London has often been the focus of frustration due to the patchy and poor quality of local broadband connectivity in some areas, which largely stems from a legacy of Exchange Only Lines (EOL) that are notoriously tricky to upgrade (it tends to require a complex and expensive network rearrangement).

Meanwhile alternative connections, such as those from Relish’s fixed 4G wireless network, don’t reach far enough into the area in order to be viable for most people and Hyperoptic’s local FTTP/B coverage is limited to a number of big apartment blocks. On top of that BT has also conducted a very limited trial of Fibre-to-the-Remote-Node (FTTrN) technology, albeit only with a small number of premises in Gwent Court (Rotherhithe Street).

However everything began to change last September when BT confirmed that they intended to expand the coverage of their fibre broadband connectivity to 18,000 extra premises in Southwark (here). The local authority’s finance boss, Fiona Colley, later clarified that 4,000 premises would benefit by March 2016 and this included “a particular focus in Rotherhithe“. The remaining 14,000 would be completed by March 2017.

The campaign group states that Phase 1 was due to see new connections comprising of three FTTRN installations at Courthope House, Pine House and Ritchie House, the installation of three new telephone / fibre cabinet combinations, two telephone cabinet upgrades and one fibre cabinet upgrade. Phase 1 would also include a cabinet upgrade at Bankside and a cabinet upgrade in East Dulwich. However there’s some doubt over the progress of this deployment.

Broadband SE16 Statement:

“Despite repeated assurances from Clr Fiona Colley (who is leading on this issue at the council) that BT were on target to complete Phase 1 by the end of March 201612 13, to date only one of the Phase 1 cabinet upgrades has been installed – the additional fibre cabinet on Surrey Quays Rd, yet to be activated.

As of 31st March 2016 not a single person in Rotherhithe has benefitted from a new BT fibre broadband connection. By 2017 Southwark will be the worse London Borough for superfast broadband and have the highest level of inadequate broadband speeds.”

Meanwhile the local authority admits that the roll-out has been “slow going” (here), although at the same time they claim to be making “good progress in improving broadband services in Rotherhithe” and state that “some of this work has already started with new cable boxes being installed in the area” (installed, but perhaps not yet live for orders?). Meanwhile Openreach could only offer a very general statement.

A Spokesman for Openreach said:

“We are making progress in deployment in Southwark and remain committed to extending our coverage of fibre broadband. We are constantly reviewing options to see whether it is feasible to go beyond our existing targets. Residents and businesses in the borough can check on the status of fibre broadband availability at their home or business address by contacting their service provider or via http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/when-can-i-get-fibre.aspx.”

In fairness Openreach might be guilty of having set a time-scale that was perhaps a little too ambitious, particularly given the well-known complexity of tackling EOLs and this can sometimes be a lot more troublesome to tackle in dense urban areas.

Similarly it’s worth remembering that the deployment in London is part of a commercial investment by BT and does not involve any public money, thus the council’s input or control over the roll-out will be very limited (practically zero). The local authority may perhaps be guilty of over-playing their influence.

On the other hand it would be helpful if, given the apparent delays, Openreach could at least offer locals a more useful update on the expected deployment time-scale for Phase 1 and 2.