New Partnership Brings Full Fibre Network to Greenwich in London

A new £2m Joint Venture involving broadband operator ITS Technology Group and DG Cities, an innovation company owned by the Royal Borough of Greenwich Council, has been established today to help commercialise a 21km long gigabit-capable full fibre network around the London borough of Greenwich – serving homes and businesses.

As part of this project a new company, Digital Greenwich Connect Ltd, has been incorporated to design, build, maintain, and commercialise the 21km network infrastructure. “Digital Greenwich Connect will substantially improve connectivity in the area, at an affordable price, while enabling public service transformation and an improvement in digital skills,” said the announcement.

The new network is expected to be open access (wholesale) for UK ISPs and will utilise existing public infrastructure wherever possible in order to minimise build disruption. Broadband and Ethernet speeds of 1000Mbps (1Gbps) and beyond are expected to become available for “businesses, public services and residents” alike.

In its initial launch phase, the network will cover a 21km area within Woolwich, with further expansion planned. The new network has also been designed to ensure that social housing and community centres are included in the strategy.

Councillor Anthony Okereke, said:

“This is one of a number of innovative steps we are taking to ensure our residents and businesses have access to fast, reliable and affordable digital connectivity and to support the delivery of modern Council services. It underpins our ambition for our communities set out in ‘Our Greenwich’ and reinforces our position as a forward-thinking, innovative council.”

Daren Baythorpe, CEO of ITS Technology, added:

“I’m delighted that we’re launching Digital Greenwich Connect and showing the power of collaboration through the public and private sector. It’s about local government and technology companies working together, deploying the most secure and resilient network in Greater London.

Fast, reliable connectivity is vital to businesses, attracting investment, supporting innovation and improving services for local residents – particularly as many more people now rely on high speed broadband to work at home. Partnerships like these can really accelerate access to critical internet and gigabit capable speeds for both businesses and residents, but also give value back to communities.”

The announcement makes no mention of how long the new network will take to complete, although it fits in nicely with the wholesale approach that ITS has taken elsewhere in the country under their “Faster Britain” programme. ITS, which is being supported by £145m from Aviva Investors (here and here), currently operates a total of around 36 wholesale full fibre broadband and Ethernet networks in the UK.

Sadly, we don’t get a lot of detail about the network itself, although ITS’ recent deployments have been adopting 10Gbps capable XGS-PON technology.