According to the company, this will enable the households in question to upgrade to full fibre without having to seek their landlord’s approval.
The kind of permission received by CityFibre is known as a way leave. Housing associations involved include Places for People, Thirteen Group, and Sheffield City Council.
A spokesperson said: “This collaborative approach ensures that people from every part of the community can benefit from the advantages of full fibre connectivity. This will help to address the digital divide, and support an equitable rollout of the new digital infrastructure.”
CityFibre head of way leave field services, Sanjay Sudra, said: “World class digital infrastructure is no longer a luxury, it is now an essential utility that everyone needs to have access to.
“As we celebrate this landmark achievement, we appreciate there is more work to be done to help as many people as possible gain access to this next generation of connectivity.”
Helen Ivison, Places for People utility infrastructure manager, said: “Having recently carried out digital inclusion research with the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, we understand in detail the challenges that the cost of living [crisis] has had on people’s ability to remain online.
“We heard that access to the internet is a lifeline. In a modern society, few can avoid using it and we rely on it for so many day-to-day tasks, even if it’s not everyone’s preferred way to communicate.”
