ISP Community Fibre Deploys FTTP Broadband to L&Q Social Homes

The L&Q Group, which houses around 250,000 people in more than 95,000 UK homes (mostly across London and the South East), has announced that they will be working with ISP Community Fibre to deploy their 1Gbps capable ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to “all their residents.”

According to L&Q, the new deal will mean they become the “first [social] housing association to offer ultra-fast, ultra-cheap broadband to all their residents” and they claim that it will be the “largest scale deployment of full fibre broadband by any UK landlord.”

The roll-out itself is due to complete by 2020 and should help to support Community Fibre’s aspiration, which aims to cover more than 1 million UK premises by 2025 (until now they’ve already been contracted to build 150,000 and expect to hit 500,000 by 2022). The operator has already raised around £40m (example) to help fund their wider plans.

Andy Brown, L&Q Chief Operating Officer, said:

“We’re working hard to make things better, faster and lower-cost for customers. Delivering low-cost connectivity to our residents will enable them to take advantage of the well documented financial, economic and social benefits of being online.

Not only will this help them to access our website, it will also support people working at home or looking for employment.

Being an early adopter of this technology has given us the opportunity to negotiate great rates for our customers. We want to future-proof our properties so that our residents will be able to benefit from advancements such as mixed-reality technology as they are developed, rather than years later.”

Jeremy Chelot, CEO of Community Fibre, added:

“We are delighted to be working with L&Q to offer the UK’s fastest Gigabit services across their nationwide portfolio.

L&Q’s commitment to make more affordable, flexible and better internet available to all their residents has made it easy for Community Fibre to bring this expansion to reality. This partnership showcases how an innovative approach from a housing association can help us to provide a network for the future, and offer the best in connectivity to customers”.

Apparently the first location to benefit will be The Ocean Estate in Stepney Green. On top of that the ISP will work with the L&Q Foundation to employ people in the localities where the service is provided in roles that will include customer service, sales and installation. The provider will also deliver a free gigabit broadband connection to community spaces (e.g. public halls, schools and libraries).