Wired & Wireless Connectivity in the Square Mile isn't good enough but we are working on improvement!
Large businesses in the square mile can obtain excellent broadband services, because their buildings have dedicated access from the 10 available high speed fibre networks. Sadly, smaller businesses and residents often find the local offering is disappointing as they can only afford access to the standard copper broadband, as slow as 2 megabits per second in some areas. I've therefore been pleased via both the IT committee and the projects committee to be involved in initiatives to boast the broadband service.
Work is underway by the City Property Advisory Team (CPAT), to encourage broadband providers to respond to unmet demand for faster affordable broadband. The City is also aiming to encourage investment in affordable gigabit broadband infrastructure.
The next phase of our efforts will be seen later this year when BT Openreach will complete the delivery of 35 superfast broadband cabinets by November 2017, (offering speeds of up to 80 megabits per second) to 5,000 City premises. Areas which have already been connected to the broadband cabinets and those areas which are soon to be connected are shown at: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/superfastbroadband.
There are however a number of areas which will not be covered by BT Openreach’s deployment. Although BT Openreach has committed to delivering their “BPON” network (offering affordable services up to 1 gigabit per second) to 12,000 premises in the City (in areas unserved by superfast broadband), which will be delivered in 2 phases between 2017-18. Whilst the first trial BPON area (Chancery Lane) is expected to be delivered by the end of August 2017, the remaining areas are yet to start due to funding delays caused by the legal separation of BT Openreach and BT Group. Further clarity is being sought from BT Group on this matter.
We are therefore encouraging others, for example - “Fibre To The Premises” providers (such as Hyperoptic) continue to connect multi-tenanted buildings in the City, offering affordable speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, however they generally require a minimum of 50 residents / SMEs before investing, which does not help residents or SMEs in smaller buildings.
The City is also undertaking a competitive selection process to roll out fibre broadband services to the City’s 12 housing estates, which will see over 7,000 residents benefit from affordable faster broadband at speeds of up to 1 gigabit with a low priced, no contract service being offered to residents on benefits or low incomes.
Wireless connectivity
To improve mobile coverage and provide an enhanced free gigabit WiFi service for the Square Mile’s residents workers and visitors, the City has recently awarded a public tender to CTIL, who will deliver:
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A world leading gigabit WiFi network which will be free to use on an unlimited basis, across the Square Mile from the end of September 2017, which will be more advanced than the Link NYC gigabit WiFi network recently being built in New York City.
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A network of 400 4G small cells by 2019 (beginning in autumn 2017), using City street furniture to provide enhanced mobile coverage at street level, that will be the largest project of its kind anywhere in the UK, and will place the City in the best position to adopt 5G as soon as it’s available (2021).