Channel Islands Estate
SCCI Alphatrack deliver a single, neutral-hosted full fibre network across 240 premises at the Channel Islands Estate.
The Development
Islington Council is London’s largest council landlord, managing around 35,000 homes across the borough. Among these are the Channel Islands Estate in Canonbury—home to Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, and Jethou Houses—alongside the neighbouring Douglas Estate, including Florence Nightingale and Sybil Thorndike Houses.
Together, the estates comprise 240 properties, including two high-rise buildings designated as Higher Risk Buildings (HRBs) under the Building Safety Act 2022.
The Challenge
Rolling out fibre to MDUs is rarely straightforward, and the complications multiply when HRBs are involved. New building safety regulations mean landlords are increasingly reluctant to permit multiple fibre installs, especially as Building Safety Regulator (BSR) approvals can take more than six months to obtain. Traditional ISP deployments mean repeated penetrations through risers, multiple fire seal breaches, and disruptive overbuilds—all of which compromise safety, aesthetics, and compliance.
Islington needed a way to bring full fibre to residents while protecting the integrity of their buildings, streamlining management, and meeting strict regulatory demands.
High-Risk Buildings
Under the Building Safety Act 2022, a “higher-risk building” is defined as any residential block over 18 metres or seven storeys with at least two homes. For property owners and residents of buildings like Channel Islands and Douglas, this designation creates significant challenges for fibre deployment.
Repeated installations from different providers can create major issues, including fire safety risks and damage to a building's structural integrity. This can also lead to long delays in receiving the necessary compliance sign-off from the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which can take months to approve. In many cases, landlords simply halt fibre projects altogether, leaving residents without high-speed internet.
This is where 4Fibre offers a compelling solution, providing a single, neutral-hosted network that is designed to meet all safety requirements on the first attempt. By using this single network, landlords can ensure a seamless installation process that can be quickly signed off by accredited specialists, avoiding the delays and risks associated with multiple, uncoordinated deployments.
The Deployment
SCCI Alphatrack delivered a single, neutral-hosted full fibre network—4Fibre—across all 240 premises. This approach meant one installation, one cable route, and one fire seal, completed by a FIRAS and BM Trada accredited team competent to carry out and certify the fire stopping.
The deployment followed SCCI’s established compliance process:
- Pre-construction: review of fire strategies, risk assessments, and asbestos registers.
- Planning: tailored risk assessments and method statements.
- Execution: installation by trained, certified engineers.
- Post-work: full certification, including fire stop reports with photos, FIRAS Certificate of Conformity, commissioning records, and golden-thread deployment documentation.
The 4Fibre installation was connected back to Community Fibre’s award-winning network, making use of available capacity to ensure a smooth, efficient rollout.
Installing in high-rise estates is always a balancing act. You’ve got residents who just want better connectivity, landlords who need full compliance, and engineers trying to do the job without cutting corners.
What makes me proud of this project is that we delivered fibre in a way that kept everyone’s priorities intact: safe, certified, and with as little disruption as possible.
Steve Chesterman, Operations Director, SCCI Alphatrack and 4Fibre
The Result
Residents across the Channel Islands and Douglas Estates now have access to gigabit-capable broadband, with speeds up to 5 Gbps over wired connections (950 Mbps over WiFi), and entry-level packages from under £20. Just as importantly, the deployment preserved building safety and aesthetics, minimised disruption, and reduced carbon impact by more than 50% compared to repeated ISP overbuilds.
For the landlord, management is simpler: a single network is easier to oversee, safer to maintain, and fully documented to meet golden-thread obligations. For residents, it’s choice, reliability, and value—without the wait.
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