BT Deal to Bring Gigabit Broadband to 15,000 West London Premises

UK ISP BT and the West London Alliance (WLA), which represents the London Boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Harrow and Hillingdon, have today announced a new £3.9 million partnership that aims to provide up to 15,000 “homes, schools and businesses with access to ultra-fast broadband” using full fibre technology.

The project is being part-funded by the Government’s £900m Getting Building Fund – as allocated by the Mayor of London. Further investment has also come from London Councils’ Strategic Investment Pot, which forms part of their Business Rates Retention Pilot.

However, there are some confusing aspects of this announcement, which we’re seeking clarification over. Firstly, the release says that the deployment will pave the way for “up to 1GB internet speeds” in the area, but we assume they meant to say Gb (Gigabits) instead of GB (GigaBytes).

Secondly, the release initially states that “up to 15,000 homes and businesses [are] to receive full fibre broadband connections“, before later saying that the investment will only “connect public buildings” (i.e. libraries, social care, council sites etc.), before adding that it also “further unlocks new connections for up to 15,000 homes and businesses in the vicinity.”

In our experience, projects that connect public buildings (anchor tenant) to full fibre normally require additional private investment, usually via separate commercial builds (especially in competitive urban areas), in order for that new infrastructure to be extended out to reach nearby homes and businesses. As such, we’re left with some uncertainty as to whether the £3.9m will only do the public buildings and or the 15,000 other premises.

Ed Maughan, BT’s Director for London Private and Public Sector, said:

“This project with WLA will enable us to bring full fibre connections to five West London boroughs that will not just boost internet speeds, but also ensure schools, businesses, households and essential public spaces benefit from future-proofed infrastructure.

What’s more, it will help tackle digital inequality and bring access to state-of-the-art technology to key community hubs, who can often find it difficult to access funding.”

Theo Blackwell, Chief Digital Officer for London, said:

“The Mayor and I are committed to investing in London’s digital infrastructure to create a better, fairer and more prosperous city for all. More than half of London homes are now connected to full fibre, up from only four per cent in 2017. Much of this progress is down to councils and City Hall working closely with telecommunications companies to encourage local investment like this project in west London.”

We are thrilled that BT and West London Alliance have come together to provide thousands of homes, schools, community centres and businesses with ultra-fast broadband, minimising digital inequality and significantly improving people’s lives and livelihoods.”

We should add that the announcement doesn’t clarify who will be building which parts of this new network. The assumption is that Openreach will do any FTTP that’s required, although this isn’t explicitly stated and a Dark Fibre style build may instead be involved. We have queried these points and hope to have an update soon.

UPDATE 1:39pm

We’ve been informed that Openreach will conduct the network build, and they once again stated that the new network build will “provide access to fibre connectivity” for up to 15,000 homes and public buildings. It’s unusual to see state aid being used to build FTTP for 15,000 premises in an urban area, as such things usually run into problems with state aid rules (voucher schemes are sometimes used to get around this).