City Matters 074

Page 4 | 23 May - 05 June 2018
News Matters
CITYMATTERS.LONDON
HOW THE CORP IS MAKING SLOW CONNECTIONS A THING OF THE PAST
LET’S TALK CITY:
Catherine McGuinness, the
City of London’s policy
chairman, explains how
the authority is working
to ensure residents are
no longer hampered by
sluggish broadband
We’re better
connected
THERE is nothing more frustrating than when
the little wheel on your screen keeps going
round and round and you’re in the middle
of the best part of a film that you’ve been
streaming, or when you can’t connect when
you’re up against a deadline.
In today’s modern world a fast Internet
connection should be a basic human right, now
more than ever before.
Our lives have come to rely heavily on
technology, be it to do business, read the daily
news on a phone or tablet, catch up on the latest
episode on Netflix or send emails from your
computer.
The Internet and the speed of it has become a
necessity, not a luxury.
Limited
Historically the Capital has suffered from poor
broadband speeds, with London being ranked
26th out of 33 European capitals with the worst
broadband speed.
Most of the social housing estates across
London run by the City of London Corporation
only have copper wire broadband, which is
limited to speeds of 10 megabits per second or
less.
We are now partnering with fibre providers
Community Fibre, Hyperoptic and Vision Fibre
Media to connect all of our housing estates with
‘Fibre To The Premises’ (FTTP).
FTTP will offer faster broadband – speeds up
to one gigabit per second – at affordable prices,
with a low priced, no contract option broadband
service for those on benefits or low incomes.
FTTP provides a fibre optic connection all the
way from the telephone exchange to your home,
whereas traditional fibre broadband or FTTC
(Fibre-to-the-Cabinet) is a fibre connection
to your local on-street cabinet, then a copper
connection from the cabinet to your home –
making everything a whole lot slower.
FTTP will be rolled out to all 7,500 residents in
the 12 central London housing estates which we
run, by mid-2019. First to receive the superfast
broadband or FTTP service will be residents
living on the Avondale and Southwark estates.
Installation has started and will be completed in
two weeks.
These new broadband services will stretch
across all our housing in six London boroughs
including Hackney, Islington, Lambeth,
Lewisham, Tower Hamlets and, of course, here
in the City of London. And communal areas on
each estate will also benefit from a one gigabit
per second WiFi hotspot for residents to use.
The City of London Corporation continues
talk to the government and the telecoms industry
to respond to the pressing need to provide faster
broadband for residents at an affordable price.
Many local authorities are still viewed as a
major barrier to providing improved broadband
coverage to social housing estates. But our roll
out of FTTP seeks to ensure that our residents
are connected with first-class broadband at an
affordable price.
Soon, residents will be able to enjoy vastly
improved wireless connectivity, and this project
should ensure that a slow connection across the
City of London’s social housing estates and in the
Square Mile is a thing of the past.