Openreach to provide more than 10,500 homes and businesses on new East London development with fastest broadband speeds in the UK
Ultrafast broadband deployment is the largest of its kind in the UK
More than 10,500 new properties on the 443-acre Barking Riverside brownfield site on the northern banks of the River Thames will be able to get ultrafast fibre broadband as a result of a deal between the developer and Openreach.
Openreach, the company responsible for the majority of the UK’s local phone and broadband network, will build fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology capable of ultrafast speeds up to 1Gbps for properties on the site – which will include a mix of family housing, apartments, schools, retail, community and leisure facilities.
The major investment at Barking Riverside is part of an Openreach initiative, in agreement with the government and the Home Builders Federation, to connect all sizeable new housing developments in the UK with ultrafast fibre broadband.
Barking Riverside is the largest of 9,877 new housing developments totalling more than 240,000new premises across the UK to benefit from an FTTP contract with Openreach since the launch of the scheme last year.
Situated on the site of the former Barking Power Station, the development is the UK’s largest brownfield regeneration scheme and will create housing for 29,000 people.
Work to install fibre to properties being built as part of the 20 year project will begin within the next few months. Openreach is set to build ultrafast broadband to serve around 460 houses, 9,000 flats and a 1000 businesses, providing access to the fastest broadband speeds in the UK.
Kim Mears, managing director of infrastructure at Openreach, said: “We are really pleased to be involved in what is one of the most ambitious and important developments in the UK. This major investment in ultrafast broadband reflects our commitment to ensuring the UK has a first class network, capable of delivering the latest communication services for households, businesses and other organisations across the UK.
“We know that people are passionate about the speed and reliability of the broadband service that their communication provider can offer them, and for some the availability of ultrafast speeds will strongly influence their decision on which new property to buy.An ultrafast broadband network will be a major boost for this new community by ensuring that people living and working there have quick access to some of the fastest speeds available.”
The Barking development is managed by Barking Riverside Limited –a joint venture between the London & Quadrant New Homes and the Mayor of London.
Ian Millard, Technical Director at Barking Riverside Ltd, said: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Openreach to deliver some of the fastest fibre broadband in the UK to over 10,000 homes across the Barking Riverside development.”
As part of ambitious plans to make ultrafast broadband speeds available to up to 12 million homes and businesses by the end of 2020 – Openreach will now build FTTP infrastructure for free to all new housing developments with 30[1] or more homes. This is dependent on developers registering their site with Openreach and working together early in the building process, as has happened with this development. Openreach has promised to connect new homes within nine months of contracting with a developer.
Any developments with two or more homes will have access to the company’s existing or planned fibre infrastructure, either funded entirely by Openreach or with the help of developer co-funding where that’s needed.
[1]Construction of Fibre to the Premises infrastructure (the ducting, poles and wires) will be carried out for free on developments of more than 30 premises. Standard connection and ongoing service provider charges will apply and excess construction charges will continue to apply where the site is more than 4.5 kilometres from Openreach’s existing fibre network.
