Anchor Confirm WiFi Upgrade for 1,700 Housing and Care Locations in England

England’s largest not-for-profit provider of housing and care for people in later life, Anchor, has today revealed that they’re working with Managed ISP Wifinity to deploy faster Wi-Fi infrastructure across its almost 1,700 housing locations and care homes – serving more than 65,000 residents in almost 55,000 homes.

The new network will be targeted at serving both the company’s offices and also communal spaces, which should help to support residents and tackle digital exclusion, while also aiding staff to do their jobs. The roll-out itself is already underway, and hundreds of residents have already connected to the new service via over 200 live sites.

In addition to connecting residents through Wifinity, Anchor’s “Be Well” service provides a range of ways to support residents’ wellbeing, both online and off, and the investment in Wi-Fi will provide opportunities for more residents to get involved in the service. As part of Be Well, Be Digital provides digital support to residents who enrol – helping them to get and stay connected with loved ones and to upskill their digital capabilities.

Anchor CEO, Sarah Jones, said:

“The connectivity will enable Anchor to support colleagues with technology and systems to enhance every aspect of the service that residents receive. It will bring enormous benefits for residents, whether they are online or not, and will help us to address the serious issue of digital poverty. Crucially, along with our adoption of the Plentific platform to manage repairs and planned works and our wider digital and data strategy, it enables more modern, efficient ways of ensuring residents have safe, well-maintained homes.

We chose to partner with Wifinity because they could deliver at the scale and pace we required. By providing our corporate network for colleagues and building management systems while also having taken the time to really understand and meet our residents’ needs, Wifinity are driving cost saving by doing more with the same kit, all of which is improving the lives of our residents.”

Costas Demetriou, CEO of Wifinity, said:

“We are delighted we were selected by Anchor to be a part of this digital transformation. The scale and ambition of this programme is huge and will make such a difference to so many people. As well as the installation, we are supporting residents to be active online and be able to access vital services such as video consultations with health professionals, ordering prescriptions and calls with families.”