Is full fibre one of the keys to levelling up?
The government wants to encourage regional growth. Creating better connectivity for tenants and residents is key to delivery, CityFibre’s Sanjay Sudra tells Inside Housing
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The need to tackle regional inequalities and drive growth looks to set remain on the political agenda, even though we have entered a new era. The idea of ‘levelling up’ the country was a central plank of former prime minister Boris Johnson’s policy agenda, although the vagueness of the concept did not help its cause. Nevertheless, Liz Truss, Mr Johnson’s successor, has vowed to “double down” on this mission to “level up” the country.
One way to encourage regional growth is to provide fast, reliable, full-fibre broadband to as many people as possible. In her first speech as prime minister, Ms Truss said she wanted to build broadband “faster”. Given the amount of time people now spend online, addressing this issue feels more pressing than ever if a digital divide is to be avoided.
When it comes to the housing sector, this idea dovetails with an increasing focus on tenants’ experience since the Grenfell Tower fire, amid new legislation being introduced through the Social Housing Regulation Bill.
As part of its £5bn Project Gigabit, the government has set a strategic target to extend gigabit-capable broadband to 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025 and universal coverage by around 2030. It can play a role in tackling the digital divide, but social landlords are key when it comes to embracing full fibre.
Inside Housing spoke to Sanjay Sudra of CityFibre to assess the situation for social housing landlords.
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How big a job is it to deliver super-fast broadband across the UK and how will we get there?
Delivering rapid, nationwide broadband is a massive task. I believe it’s private investment that will deliver the government’s target of extending gigabit-capable broadband to 85% of UK premises by 2025.
It’s a competitive market. It will bring long-term benefits to consumers in terms of price, choice and reliability.
At CityFibre, we will soon have installed full fibre to two million homes. Overall, we are investing £4bn to bring full fibre to eight million homes by 2025. That will be across 285 cities, towns and villages and includes a high proportion of locations ranked as being in the 10% most deprived parts of England.
What would you say are some of the issues holding you back from achieving this target?
Materials are hard to get, but we’ve got a stockpile that is sufficient. It is tough; I’m not going to say it’s not. But it’s something we thought about before Brexit. When we deploy our core fibre, we pay for the infrastructure, so the landlord does not have to worry about the cost.
Are you satisfied with the government’s approach to the situation?
We’re really supportive of the steps the government has taken to speed up processing and agree wayleaves with landlords. The government has recognised the importance of digital connectivity, which is obviously fantastic.
There is some confusion about full fibre though, as some people are not exactly aware of how it differs from other types of broadband currently available. In this respect, I think some education initiatives would be useful.
Full fibre is end-to-end fibre into your property, not the green cabinet on the roadside that you see with ultra-fast or super-fast broadband.
Sanjay Sudra, head of wayleaves at CityFibre, has worked in the telecoms and media industry for more than 15 years and, having joined CityFibre in 2019, now leads the company’s team of wayleave account managers.
Are social landlords doing enough to tackle the digital divide and do they understand the benefits?
I think more and more now understand the benefits of full fibre. Two or three years ago, they didn’t necessarily understand the advantages, but they now understand the economic impact it can have on their residents. But, again, a lot of this is down to education and appreciating what full-fibre broadband is compared to super-fast broadband.
There are parts of the country that have been poorly served by previous telecoms roll-outs. At CityFibre, we’re concentrating on building networks outside London. A third of our roll-outs are in locations that the government has identified as places where regional growth is needed most.
How are you working with landlords and how are they working with each other?
We’re working with landlords to find the best way to get residents connected. The interest and awareness from social housing providers are growing. We’re aware of housing associations and local authorities talking to each other, asking, ‘How are you doing this?’
We’ve linked two major housing associations together and they are talking to each other to find out how they [extended coverage to their residents].
The government is also investing money in a bid to reach a million hard-to-reach homes as part of the Project Gigabit programme.
What are the advantages for residents and housing associations of having full-fibre broadband?
There are many advantages for residents. When you have multiple devices in a home and [internet access is] running on an old copper-wire network, it will often fail unless you have full [fibre-optic cables]. With full fibre, you’ll get symmetrical speeds – your upload and your download speeds will be the same.
This is all key in helping residents who may work from home and those who are looking for employment opportunities, or working on career development and education.
There is also the issue of streaming. If you have multiple devices running, you need that reliability.
In numbers
85%
Percentage of UK premises the government wants to have gigabit-capable broadband
8 million
Number of homes to which CityFibre will bring full fibre by 2025, across 285 cities, towns and villages
What are the benefits for local communities?
Full fibre has great potential to support local growth in communities across the country. The unrivalled speed and reliability of full fibre is key to attracting businesses and enabling them to grow and thrive.
It is also key to enabling young people, in particular, to remain in their local communities and still find every success.
Housing associations have a lot of competing financial challenges at the moment, such as increasing development and building safety costs and making homes more energy efficient. How should they fit investment in full-fibre broadband into their plans?
There is no financial challenge to getting full fibre into their buildings. We pick up the tab on this, we put the infrastructure in, we do all the surveys, we do all the fitting, we connect everything. We make sure there is a connection to every single property’s front door. We also maintain it. It’s written in the wayleave that we manage and maintain it.
What is your message to social landlords?
My advice would be: ‘Don’t get left behind’. Having access to full fibre is paramount to levelling up this country. You can’t just have the South and the South East having all the economic benefits.
