Hammersmith & Fulham Council has reached an agreement with BT Openreach for the roll-out of high-speed broadband to a further 2,000+ homes and offices across the borough.

Engineers have started planning and survey work in order to install additional fibre broadband street cabinets across the borough in the coming months - providing access to speeds of up to 80Mbps (more than double the current UK average speed).

Today 19 out of every 20 homes in Hammersmith & Fulham can access ‘superfast’ broadband (thinkbroadband.com figures), and every business can order a dedicated ultrafast service from a choice of providers. This latest network extension will increase that figure still further.

“We are pleased the benefits of fibre broadband will now be rolled out to even more people in the borough,” said Cllr Andrew Jones, H&F Council Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Regeneration.

“It is a key priority that this is delivered for our residents and businesses; and we have worked hard to encourage additional investment as part of our plan to make this the best place to work, live and socialise in Europe.”

Kim Mears, Openreach managing director for infrastructure delivery, added: “We welcomed the approach by the council as we were very keen to increase the availability of fibre broadband across the borough.

“As a result of the approach by the council team, we will be able to expand our coverage over the coming months, and continue to explore options to ensure that we deliver the service wherever it is commercially viable for us to do so.”

“This is good news for the borough. Hammersmith & Fulham Council should be congratulated for taking the initiative in order to make this additional investment possible.”

Once the network is built, local residents and businesses will need to contact their service provider to upgrade and take advantage of the higher speeds available.

Fibre broadband at home means everyone can do their own thing online, all at the same time, whether it’s downloading music in minutes or watching catch-up TV; streaming HD or 3D movies; or posting photos and videos to social networking sites in seconds.

Fibre improves the quality of online experiences and supports exciting new developments in internet services.

The benefits are also considerable for businesses, which can do much more in far less time.

Firms can speed up file and data transfers, collaborate with colleagues and customers on conference or video calls, or get the full benefits of from cloud computing.

Staff can work as effectively from home as they would in the office.

In addition, Openreach is now piloting Gfast technology in parts of Hammersmith and Parsons Green, which allows the delivery of ultrafast speeds of up to 330Mbps over existing copper lines.

The cutting edge technology builds on our existing network, so it allows areas to be upgraded very quickly with minimal disruption and cost, and will evolve over time to offer even faster speeds.