ISP CommunityFibre, which has already covered 500,000 premises in London with their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, have this week continued their expansion with the aim of adding “thousands” of residents, businesses and local communities across Harrow.
By the sound of it, the operator has probably secured a master wayleave agreement (legal land/property access) with the local authority, not least because the latest network build will start with council housing in Harrow, as part of a custom-built installation.
Fibre installation work has already begun on Northolt Road, South Harrow, and will continue onto Osmond Close. The local deployment is expected to run for the next 2 years. As part of the investment, CommunityFibre will also provide a free 1000Mbps full fibre broadband connection to the Grange Farm Community Centre and Northolt Road Community Centre.
Residential customers typically pay from £20 per month on a 24-month term (£25 post-contract) for their unlimited 50Mbps (symmetric speed) package with free setup and a free router, which rises to just £25 per month (£49 post-contract) for their 920Mbps service. The operator also offers a super-cheap 10Mbps tier for just £12.50 per month, which is aimed at those who may struggle to afford the main plans, despite them being incredibly cheap.
Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre, said:
“At Community Fibre, we believe that everyone should have access to the best internet to ensure growth and greater opportunities for all. Closing the digital divide is our priority. Therefore, we are focused on accelerating our full fibre rollout to facilitate better internet for everyone supported by our Community Investments and Digital Ambassadors programme.
We are pleased to be working with Harrow Council to bring London’s fastest internet to its residents at the best prices, which has held a 4.9 ‘Excellent’ Trust Pilot score and 96% 5-star reviews (September) for the past three years.”
At present the operator, which also owns Box Broadband’s fibre network in parts of Surrey and West Sussex (here), has already covered 500,000 premises in the capital city and they’re aiming to reach 2.2 million by 2024 – that’s more than half of all the homes in the city (3.7 million). But they will have plenty of competition, particularly from the likes of Virgin Media, Openreach, Hyperoptic and G.Network.
Very slow rollout. Many street in south London have no fibre also they installed one telephone pole and leave rest.
“Very slow” rollout when currently they are building faster than everyone except openreach
Not sure if they’re building faster than everyone except Openreach (CityFibre, G.Network and now Hyperoptic are all going at a fair old rate of knots, with others catching too), but they’re definitely in that top group. So certainly not “very slow”.
Yes, they are very slow! I’ve been waiting last 17 months and it continues to say “Coming soon
Great news, we’re bringing full fibre broadband to you within the next few months.”
In February and June I asked support via email and I was told within a month. When the news was announced for my housing association EastendHomes. This is what it said…
“Community Fibre aims to get all of EastendHomes’ main blocks enabled with its 100% full-fibre within the next six months.”
I knew this was blah blah blah. Only 2 buildings in my area went live exceptionally. But that’s probably because Community Fibre were aware that they don’t have FTTC so they prioritised them before us. Generally from my observations it takes 1-3 years after wayleave for a service to go live!
I’d be curious if someone can give me their experiences of it going live within 6 months. Because that’s not what I’ve seen going through random postcodes in London.
I knew this was going to happen. As if the wait for a wayleave agreement all these years wasn’t torturous enough!
They probably have a shortage of engineers working one building at a time. They don’t have enough people working simultaneously for all their buildings or they are trying to save money not recruiting people hence, the slow rollout.
@Rahul: Even without wayleave issues, it can frequently take up to 2 years, if at all, for an altnet to deploy after an initial announcement.
We have seen that in East Anglia with companies like Lightspeed Broadband or LitFibre. Often companies don’t even have proper rollout plans or management for this.
Of course the worst offender is Openreach where for quite a few areas it claims that fibre will be built sometime before December 2026. Can’t be more vague than this!
To be perfectly honest CF are doing the streets around where I live.
I have a couple of business connections with them as well.
The street installation is comedy grade (as is the parallel OR installation). The work is certainly not done in the order any sane job planner would do it in: which does massively elongate it.
It is hard to get you head round the randomness of the approach as a very large % of the money is spent up front but then the last few links in the civils chain dribble in.
@GNewton: I’m aware of that and that’s exactly what I’ve been telling my Technical Services Manager of EastendHomes 7-8 years ago via email along with the Housing Association Manager! They ignored my emails back then when I said that even after wayleave agreement it can take 1-2 years wait.
This has now become a reality, wayleave was only stage one of this long process and that also explains the slow rollout of FTTP in the UK.
I’ve seen it with Petticoat Square Tower where wayleave was agreed in 2015 and it went live in 2018 for Hyperoptic.
Community Fibre managed to make a quicker build for Cityscape Kensington Apartments E1 6LW and E1 6NE and that’s only because they don’t have FTTC!
Community Fibre took advantage of their situation knowing that they can capture all their customers as they are ADSL only. Plus their building is smaller than mine.
Sloane Apartments E1 7AJ has Community Fibre but they have only 21 flats! Very small building compared to mine with 82 flats.
They started working in my building Denning Point last year with the Fibre cables inside my building. But then they just left it half done and then briefly again a few months later in the streets one night but since then didn’t work further. So it appears that they need to connect from the street to the building for the final completions.
CF said that this was the final work that needs to be done, but I’m not sure why it’s taking them months for this work to complete.
Great to see Community Fibre making so much traction. I feel privileged to be able to get their service, which has been rock solid and dirt cheap. Not looking forward to the day alt nets start consolidating and being bought out by bigger players. Reminds me of the good old days of BE Broadband. Enjoy it while it lasts, I guess!
I don’t think they’ll be ones that get absorbed. Hyperoptic, GNetwork etc yes. CF were first to deploy FTTP in many areas, cheap and provide a solid service. Should retain a large customer base for years to come. Unless someone has veeeery deep pockets, we’re safe!
This is going to need a little caution to avoid the wrath of the Harrow telco streetworks neighbourhood watch.
He’ll be out there quoting the Telecommunications Act, inappropriately, and obstructing their build, unlawfully, if they aren’t careful in the hope both BT and VMO2 won’t be arsed with simply enforcing their rights to build.
If they infringe on his quiet enjoyment or indeed those of any of his neighbours, including those that agreed to the work, he’ll be in like Flynn.
Not the hero Harrow wants but the hero it needs. Those at best average quality and well below par for living space but insanely overpriced per square foot streets need a guardian.
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