London ISP Community Fibre Boosts FTTP Rollout with Kelly

Broadband ISP CommunityFibre, which is currently deploying their 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of London, has today announced that they’ve joined forces with civil engineering firm Kelly Group to help deliver their goal of covering 1 million UK premises by the end of 2023.

At present the operator’s network is already available, and continuing to expand rapidly, at 200,000 premises across parts of Barnet, Brent, Camden, City of London, Croydon, Ealing, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth and Westminster.

Most of the homes on their network, which are offered maximum broadband speeds of up to 3Gbps (10Gbps for businesses), tend to exist in larger apartment blocks (e.g. social housing) or office buildings. But more recently they’ve also expanded to cover “tens of thousands” of single dwelling homes (houses).

The new partnership will see Kelly Group help to support the expansion of CF’s full fibre rollout programme, as well as creating a further 200 jobs for local communities (CF has already helped to create an extra 1,000 jobs in London over the past year alone). As such Kelly will recruit, coach and develop trainees from their multi discipline national training centre in North London.

Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre, said:

“We are thrilled to partner today with Kelly Group, the leading provider of Network Infrastructure Civil Build in the telecommunication industry. Kelly Group will be supporting us in our mission to bring faster, reliable and affordable 100% full-fibre broadband to London communities. Their proven track record in delivering quality installation at scale makes them the partner of choice to significantly increase our network deployment in London and reach our target of one million London homes and businesses, directly connected with 100% full fibre broadband to their premises, by 2023.”

Simon Burckhardt, COO of Kelly Group, said:

“We’re delighted to be supporting Community Fibre with their expansion strategy and mission to bring faster, more affordable internet services to Londoners.

I have been aware of Community Fibre and its award-winning Full Fibre internet services for a few years. We are particularly excited to be joining forces with a company that not only provides an excellent product, which will be key to upgrading London to a true Gigabit city, but also does so with community values at the forefront.

Reducing the digital divide, Community Fibre recently supported communities in London through the lockdown by providing free internet connection to vulnerable households. This is a brand that Kelly Group is very proud to be associated with and we look forward to a successful partnership.”

We should point out that CommunityFibre are not the only player in London, with rivals such as Virgin Media, Hyperoptic, Openreach and G.Network all making significant investments into their own gigabit-capable network expansion projects across the city.