It’s nearly two years since the last local elections. The Southwark Labour manifesto included a pledge to “bring superfast broadband to the Rotherhithe peninsula” and next week the Borough’s cabinet will receive a progress report.
In her foreword to the cabinet report, Cllr Fiona Colley writes:
This report provides Cabinet with an update on the work the council is doing to bring superfast broadband to the Rotherhithe peninsula.
Crucially a constructive working relationship has been established with BT Openreach, a major provider of broadband infrastructure, who is now offering a combination of solutions to improve broadband coverage in Rotherhithe.
BT has committed to the deployment of new green boxes, which bring fibre cables and improved connection speeds and will deliver superfast broadband to an additional 4,000 homes in Southwark, with a particular focus in Rotherhithe, by 31 March 2016.
BT and the council are also proposing to run a pilot in a number of council housing blocks in Rotherhithe where BT will install smaller, condensed versions of green boxes in the building. This is new technology and is known as Fibre to the Internal Cabinet (FTTIC). If successful we will look to expand this provision to more estates.
A Rotherhithe Broadband working party has been established which includes officers from the Planning and Highways departments as well as Housing & Modernisation. The group will manage liaison with BT Openreach (and potentially other broadband infrastructure providers) and push for speedy and complete deployment of fibre cabling in Rotherhithe and elsewhere in Southwark.
Overall good progress is being made in improving broadband services but we are still some distance from the 100% coverage that we are seeking and so our work continues.