A total of 74,000 homes and businesses in Crouch End, Parsons Green, Putney and Barking are due to enjoy faster internet speeds after investment from digital provider Openreach.

About £22.2 million will be spent to enable people living and working in those four communities to contact their broadband provider and upgrade to full fibre, which is up to 10 times faster than the average home connection.

The latest round follows several Openreach announcements last year, detailing its plans to give 890,000 homes and businesses across London access to its new network.

Kieran Wines, Openreach’s regional director for London, said: “Nobody in the UK is building full fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach.

“We’re reaching more communities than ever and our team of highly skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.

“In 2021 our engineers built around 770 metres of new broadband cables every minute, making ultrafast broadband available to another home or business every 13 seconds.

“We’ve already reached six million homes and businesses across the UK with ultrafast, full fibre technology including more than 550,000 across Greater London, but we know there’s more to do and we’re committed to doing it.”

Due to its ability to deliver huge quantities of data quickly, Openreach claims that full fibre is better for the environment than older connections. It cites research suggesting that hooking up every premises in the UK to full fibre by 2025 could result in 300 million fewer commuter trips, resulting in 360,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions being removed each year.

It says it is key in the NHS’s plans to give patients access to "virtual clinics", in which they only need attend a video consultation with their doctor.

The UK government’s target is to deliver "gigabit capable" broadband to 85% of the country by 2025. Openreach says its operations will play a critical role if the government is to achieve that aim, and that it will invest billions of pounds to reach 25 million premises by the end of December 2026.