TalkTalk East London borough handed &pound;800k for ultrafast fibre

The London Borough of Havering has been awarded £800,000 ($1.02m) from the Greater London Authority's Strategic Investment Pot to fund a new ultrafast fibre-optic network in Rainham. The new network could be used to enhance traffic management and planning as well as environmental monitoring. Meanwhile, the borough is also seeking private-sector investment to expand the service to local businesses.

Friday, Jan 4th, 2019 (12:01 am) - Score 1,655

The Greater London Authority’s Strategic Investment Pot has awarded £800,000 to the Borough of Havering, which will be used to deploy a new ultrafast fibre optic network into the Rainham area. This could be used for improving connectivity to both public sector sites and businesses.

At present Havering is already extremely well covered by slower hybrid fibre services (FTTC) from Openreach (BT) and they have a significant level of ultrafast broadband coverage via Virgin Media’s cable network, although “full fibre” (FTTP) style connectivity is only available to a tiny proportion of the borough.

The new fibre optic infrastructure could initially be used to help manage transport, traffic planning, community safety and environmental monitoring around Rainham. However the local authority also indicates their desire to attract additional private sector investment, which could support an extension to connect local businesses (this sounds a bit like Cityfibre’s favoured anchor tenancy approach).

Such a move would also be supported by the Government’s new Gigabit Voucher Scheme, which offers up to £2,500 to help firms install a Gigabit capable broadband connection.

Damian White, Leader of the Council, said: “This is great news for Havering. This funding will deliver new digital infrastructure and will provide greater support to businesses to gain better online access. Along with the recent announcement of the £1.6m secured for Rainham through the Good Growth Fund, this continues our commitment to ensuring that the benefits of regeneration continue to improve the lives of as many local businesses and residents as possible.”

The initial public sector focused deployment is currently scheduled to begin in April 2019.