Householders in roads in Mill Hill, Arkley, High Barnet, and Hadley Wood are being offered a free connection if they sign up to a Swedish company which is installing a new fibre broadband service.
Open Infra is supporting Barnet Council’s gigabit broadband programme and is establishing a new broadband infrastructure to serve areas where there is poor reception or where there is no interest from other providers.
Residents living on the fringes of the borough, especially in semi-rural areas close to the Green Belt, have been complaining for years about a dire broadband service.
Neil Ashby, Open Infra’s project manager – seen here at the junction of Hadley Ridge and East View, Hadley Green -- is leading a team that has spent the last few months signing up new customers with the promise of “full fibre to your home…hyper fast digital connectivity to meet your needs today and tomorrow”.
A survey conducted by the Barnet Society in 2016 estimated there were 3,000 homes in High Barnet without a superfast connection – a complaint that persists today.
Open Infra needs to sign up at least 40 per cent of residents in a road if a street is to qualify for the investment required for the new fibre service – and the company says numerous roads have qualified.
Mill Hill was the first to be targeted because Barnet Council found there was no interest from other providers such as BT Open Reach or Virgin Media.
“Already well over 200 houses in Mill Hill have been connected. Some are reporting speeds as high as 930 megabits a second – 30 times faster than the broadband service that was previously available, and the network could deliver 300 times faster,” said Mr Ashby.
Installations in Mill Hill, which began in May, are taking longer than expected and the company says they are currently running at least two months behind schedule which will mean installations in and around Arkley and Barnet, will be delayed from December to the early months of the New Year, with home connections probably in February or March.
Mr Ashby acknowledged that their promotional literature suggesting most connections would be completed by the end of autumn 2022 was over optimistic and that their communications with customers who had signed up needed to improve.
“What has caused us such a problem in Mill Hill is the age of the original telecoms infrastructure,” said Open Infra’s construction director, Tobias Uller.
“Mill Hill was one of the first areas in outer London to get a telephone service and much of the underground networking dates from the 1940s.”
“Cleaning out all the ducting under roads and pavements and making the necessary repairs ready to lay the fibre is proving very time consuming.”
Open Infra has an agreement with BT Openreach to make use of its existing underground network. Once the fibre has been laid, connections are provided to each house.
Open Infra is the third largest fibre-to-home network in Sweden and it has established a distribution centre in Docklands which is connected to a local distribution point in Mill Hill and there will be others near Galley Lane, Arkley, and in Leicester Road, New Barnet.
Barnet was chosen for the launch of its UK service because the borough council was looking for partners to help deliver its gigabit broadband programme to provide residents with hyper fast digital connectivity.
After signing up 800 potential customers in Mill Hill, Open Infra began canvassing homes in Hendon Wood Lane, Barnet Gate, and Arkley; then areas around Wood Street including homes in streets such as Queens Road, Granville Road, and Kings Road; roads off East View, near Hadley Green; and the team are currently canvassing for potential customers in and around Hadley Wood.
Areas to be signed up in the future include parts of New Barnet and Enfield where there is a poor broadband service.
Householders who register to connect with the service can take advantage of a free installation and free router. A high-speed broadband and service will cost from £17.90 a month.
For more information: https://Uk.openinfra.com
