Community Fibre Build FTTP Broadband to 100,000 UK Premises

London-focused UK ISP CommunityFibre has today confirmed that the roll-out of their Gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network has now reached their first target of 100,000 premises. On top of that they have plans in place that should see this grow to 370,000 homes via 40 of London’s largest landlords.

At present their “full fibre” network mostly consists of large apartment and social housing blocks (MDUs), as well as some business properties, although they are testing the possibility of connecting up individual houses (SDUs) in the future. Most of their current buildings are located across 16 of London’s 33 boroughs (named below), with 84% of these premises made up of social housing properties.

Community Fibre offers some of the fastest broadband connectivity in the Greater London area with speeds of up to 1Gbps. In addition to the homes passed, the provider can also offer 40,000 London businesses even faster broadband speeds of up to 10Gbps.

Otherwise the provider’s medium-term aim is to cover more than 500,000 premises by the end of 2022 (we think some of this may be built outside of London), which is being fuelled by an investment pot of around £90m from private investors and Government backed schemes.

Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre, said:

“We are tremendously proud to be bringing in the New Year having enabled 100,000 households, the majority of which are social housing properties. These homes are just some of the victims of the national digital divide.

Several of London’s largest landlords now have more than a third of their properties connected to full-fibre internet speeds and with Community Fibre, London’s landlords can now, at no cost to themselves, increase this figure whilst supporting the UK’s broadband ambition to reach its target of bringing fast, reliable and secure broadband to the UK as soon as possible.

Our mission is to bring faster and cheaper broadband to Londoners and especially to those that would benefit the most from it, by working with councils, housing associations and private landlords. We passionately believe in engaging with the local community; we actively look to recruit locally, we offer residents digital skills training and provide free wifi broadband in local community centres to have a positive social impact.”

The provider added that over 70% of the social housing premises in the Borough of Wandsworth are now enabled for their service. The Borough of Southwark closely follows, with 57% of council-owned properties passed. Packages on their network tend to start at just £20 per month for a symmetrical speed 50Mbps service with unlimited usage and a free router, which rises to just £50 for their top 920Mbps tier (average peak time speed).

Boroughs where premises and businesses are enabled with Community Fibre’s network, to date: Brent, Camden, City of London, Croydon, Ealing, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, Westminster.