Library users in Southwark get free full-fibre broadband

15 October 2018

Visitors to one of Southwark’s libraries will be able to sign onto free full-fibre broadband as part of the council’s partnership with internet provider Community Fibre.

John Harvard Library on Borough High Street is the first library in Southwark to get free, ultrafast fibre-optic broadband and the building now boasts a 1 Gigabit per second connection, with user download speeds of up to 500 Megabits per second across the Wi-Fi network. This means local residents can download information, books and films in seconds, rather than minutes.

Community Fibre, who is at the forefront of addressing growing ‘Broadband Poverty’ in the UK, has been working closely with Southwark Council to get the library ‘gigabit enabled’. Gigabit enabled broadband increases the information throughput tenfold and will greatly enhance the library’s ability to stream high-bandwidth files to connected devices. Gigabit enabled connections are the fastest available in the UK.

The difference is true full-fibre, which uses fibre-optic cables direct to the premises. This is in comparison to the mix of fibre-optic cabling and copper wire - which most established internet service providers still use, yet market their product as true full-fibre.

Cllr Stephanie Cryan, cabinet member for housing and modernisation, said: “With the internet becoming ever more central to people’s lives’, from watching TV to paying your bills, it is more important than ever that our residents have access to high-quality, fast and reliable broadband so they can take full advantage of the digital revolution. We are pleased to be working with Community Fibre to not only get broadband into people’s homes but to places they go to use the internet - like our libraries.”

Jeremy Chelot, the Chief Executive of Community Fibre, said: “We are delighted to have worked on this project with Southwark Council. Thousands of people in the UK live in Broadband Poverty. Community Fibre’s mission is to remove Broadband Poverty by ensuring people have a local facility, such as the library, where they can access full-fibre broadband for free. We’re confident that once they realise the opportunities that full-fibre broadband offers they will also want a connection in their own home.”

Page last updated: 15 October 2018