Community Fibre Prep 100% FTTP Broadband Cover in Islington
London focused UK ISP CommunityFibre, which has already covered 500,000 premises in the city with their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, has followed Hyperoptic’s plan to cover 90% of Islington with full fibre (here) by announcing that they’ll do 100%. In short, locals will have plenty of options.
The partnership with Islington Council will see CommunityFibre build their network to cover 36,000 properties (homes and businesses) in the borough, which is expected to take three years to complete (by late 2025) – just like Hyperoptic’s build. Planning surveys have already begun in the area of St. Mary’s.
Customers typically pay from £20 per month on a 24-month term (£22 post-contract) for their unlimited 50Mbps (symmetric speed) package with free setup and a free router, which rises to £25 per month (£27 post-contract) for their top 920Mbps service. The operator also offers a super-cheap 10Mbps tier for just £12.50 per month, which is aimed at those who may struggle to afford the main plans.
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Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre, added:
“At Community Fibre, we believe that everyone should have access to the best internet to ensure growth and greater opportunities for all. Closing the digital divide is our priority. Therefore, we are focused on accelerating our full fibre rollout to facilitate better internet for everyone supported by our Community Investments and Digital Ambassadors programme.
We are pleased to be working with Islington Council to bring London’s fastest internet to its residents at the best prices, which has held a 4.9 ‘Excellent’ Trust Pilot score and 96% 5-star reviews (September) for the past three years.”
The operator has so far covered 500,000 premises in London and they’re currently aiming to reach 2.2 million by 2024 – that’s more than half of all the homes in the city (3.7 million). But they will have plenty of competition, particularly from the likes of Virgin Media, Openreach, Hyperoptic and G.Network.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Oh, wow, not very original. How is this profitable for any of the providers? Virgin and Openreach are already there, Gnetwork also has some coverage, Hyperoptic and Community plan to cover (almost) the entire Islington. The level of overbuild would be insane.
Openreach are barely in Islington, if you’re talking FTTP. I agree it’s a lot of overbuild but the population density should keep things profitable for all involved.
We’re in Canonbury West and there are only EO copper Openreach lines and Virgin Media currently.
No other FTTP offerings in this particular precinct of Islington from either G.network or Community Fibre. Until this particular announcement CF had no plans to come down our street. We shall see.
Not only unprofitable due to the level of competition, but wasted effort building out multiple networks in islington while many areas simply have nothing at all.
We’d be better off with a non profit handling the physical infrastructure, and individual providers renting the fibre to individual premises where they want to provide service. Works well in Singapore for instance.
Islington is one of the last big councils that had yet to sign a wayleave for its council stock. Not surprising considering it’s the go to place for champagne socialists in the UK, which includes Jeremy Corbyn and one of the rail union leaders who leeches off of the taxpayer living in a council flat despite earning a 6 digit salary. Everyone benefits from this competition
Nonetheless it will be interesting seeing another borough race between all the main London players again
Boris Johnson lived in a £4M gaff in Islington from 2009 to 2018. Are you saying that he’s also a champagne socialist?
You need some serious rehab, Islington is also filled with islington conservatives as well along side islington labour and greens. Either way, islington tories are going tobenefit from this massive investment.
Not good if you are far too late to the party – BT.
Just as they will be putting in speeds up to 900mbps, the others probably will go to 10gbps capability.
All these ALTNETS across the country and Virgin Media (although they’ll be declining until they move from hybrid to FTTP in areas where they have ultrafast competition) have got to be damaging BT’s survival in a post POTS UK.
depends on how big you are in the first place and what other work you can fall back up on — london getting very crowded with providers all after the same premises
crowded my nan, uncle cousin brother and sister who live in the same estate 5+ parts to the easte have Community Fibre, Virgin 02 and Hyperoptic in final stages as building are wired just needs connecting to the fibre splitter boxes.
When Openreach fibre comes with there FTTP at the moment its gfast then have four providers but most will stick to the cheapest which is community fibre then Hyperoptic.
Hyperoptic told me they will match if we fibd cheaper deal like community fibre 1gbps is £25 at the moment.
Im with Hyperoptic as my building is Hyperoptic cabled im on 1gbps speeds £35 a month.
In the affluent part of London where I live, G.network and Community have some overlaps (both have some overlaps with Virgin) but generally only offered 1 or 2 not all three (in some cases 0 not even Virgin, and nothing much from Openreach yet). G.network recently added a few fill in streets (pre-pandemic they built a run through past a school and heading onwards to presumably to target some blocks of flats further away but didn’t build out the few hundred meters either side, and community got the other school).