Community Fibre hits milestone of 300,000 homes passed

London’s alternative network provider, Community Fibre, has revealed it has now passed 300,000 London homes and gone within 100m of 12,000 businesses with its full-fibre infrastructure. This follows its announcement in February 2021 that it had doubled the number of homes enabled with its full-fibre broadband to more than 200,000, increasing its customer base by 130% in a year.

The company said the latest announcement is a milestone reflecting a significant acceleration in its network build programme to connect one million London properties by the end of 2023 with what it claims is affordable, faster, more reliable broadband. 

Its network offers up to 3Gbps to residential homes and 10Gbps for businesses. Community Fibre operates a 100% full-fibre broadband network throughout London, and already has a presence in the boroughs of Brent, Camden, Croydon, Hammersmith & Fulham, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster, and is building in 17 other London boroughs.

Community Fibre also provides free gigabit broadband connection to 123 community centres across the capital and in January 2021 became the first fixed broadband provider to offer one-year free 50Mbps broadband in conjunction with social landlord partners to vulnerable households in all the boroughs it serves, to help with home schooling during the UK’s 2021 lockdown.

The company is also working with London’s largest landlords to build full-fibre connectivity to their properties. It is currently working with more than 200 landlords, who have already granted Community Fibre wayleave agreements to enable more than 600,000 properties, with more agreements soon to be announced.

In May 2021, Community Fibre signed a wayleave agreement with social landlord EastendHomes in Tower Hamlets to supply 4,000 residents with better broadband and bring free Gigafast broadband to six community centres in the densely populated East London borough.

Having historically focused on large apartment blocks, the provider said it was extending its network build to pass large numbers of individual and private properties. It said the combination of landlords and private homes ensures that its network covers many more properties and provides dense network coverage to local residents and businesses.

In the past six months, 100,000 additional homes have been given access to the Community Fibre network, roughly doubling its rate of build.

Community Fibre CEO Graeme Oxby said: “The last year has shown us that digital connectivity is just as important a utility as gas and electricity. As such, we have been working hard to ensure that all parts of London have access to a fast speed, highly available broadband network.

“We believe that London should have the best possible infrastructure to support its future growth ambitions. Our mission is to improve digital connectivity for all Londoners, and we are on track to reach 400,000 homes by the end of the year.”