Community Fibre gigabit broadband network passes a million London homes | Computer Weekly

Revealing that it has expanded its network footprint by as much as 75% over the past 12 months, and claiming that it has now firmly established itself as a faster, more sustainable and more affordable broadband provider, London-based internet service provider (ISP) Community Fibre has announced that more than a million residential properties are now able to connect to its gigabit broadband services.

Owned by funds advised by Warburg Pincus LLC, DTCP Railpen and NDIF, the ISP now claims to be the UK capital’s largest 100% full-fibre broadband provider. The landmark comes after the altnet’s £400m investment announcement in 2020, followed by a finance facility of £985m closed in October 2022, designed to enable the company to continue to execute its rapid roll-out of a full-fibre broadband network to 2.2 million London homes by the end of 2024.

Community Fibre offers consumers symmetrical broadband packages ranging from 150Mbps to 3Gbps, which are claimed to be up to 45.9 times faster than the UK average download speed and 193.5 times faster than the UK average upload speed, with cost savings of at least £300 over the contract length when benchmarked against competitors.

In addition to offering up to 3Gbps speeds to residential homes, Community Fibre can deliver up to 10Gbps symmetrical speeds to businesses. More than 212,000 London-based businesses are now within 100 metres of the Community Fibre’s network footprint.

Remarking on hitting the new landmark, Community Fibre CEO Graeme Oxby said that as Londoners continue to face pressure on household bills, as well as increasing consumer demand for online access and digital connectivity, his company was proud to enable access to faster, cheaper, more reliable fibre broadband.

“As well as advancing our target to reach more Londoners with our 100% full-fibre network, we will continue to challenge the industry with our innovative offerings, such as setting new out-of-contract pricing standards, which we have capped at £2 across all our packages, as well as providing easy access to our social tariff, which unlike most other broadband providers does not ask consumers to provide proof of eligibility criteria,” said Oxby.

Recognising the company’s commitment to delivering more affordable broadband to Londoners, Theo Blackwell, chief digital officer for London, said he was “thrilled” that over one million London homes were now able to connect to full-fibre broadband, giving people and businesses access to faster and more affordable internet access, supporting new jobs and growth.

“The mayor’s Connected London team and Community Fibre work closely together to make investment happen on the ground,” he added. “Together, we are bridging the digital divide and improving London’s broadband infrastructure for the future, helping to build a better, fairer and more prosperous city for all.”