Residents living on council estates across the borough could get access to faster broadband by this time next year after the council shook hands with new providers.
The council has entered into an agreement with Hyperoptic, which will give the company access to its estates, allowing it to connect 53,000 council homes and 1,000 businesses in the borough to full fibre broadband.
The local authority has also reached a similar access agreement with Community Fibre which will roll out its fibre optic to home connectivity in the same area.
Both companies have committed to providing every council-owned TRA (tenants’ and residents’ association) hall and community centre with free gigabit broadband connections. They will also offer digital inclusion training to staff and residents.
The news follows the announcement in November that the council had signed agreements with Relish for 21 of its residential blocks.
These have now been installed with seventeen sites already live, and the remaining due to go live by the end of the month. Southwark was also part of a successful bid led by TfL to improve broadband.
There will be two new fibre networks across the particularly bad ‘not spot’ areas of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, and Southwark will benefit from a share of an £8.5million grant to implement this over the next few years.