The latest Analysys Mason study has claimed that the United Kingdom remains top of the “big five” (EU5) European countries (i.e. France, Germany, Italy and Spain) in terms of superfast broadband (30Mbps+) coverage, take-up, average service speeds and competition. But the wider picture remains more complex.
Back in 2010 the Government said that it wanted the UK to have “the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015“, although in 2012 this was craftily refined to say the “fastest broadband of any major European country by 2015” (here), which is an important distinction as it appeared to compare us against only the largest EU5 states instead of Europe as a whole.
Thankfully the new study (PDF), which is based on data from the end of 2012 and includes a forecast to 2018, also compares the United Kingdom with the EU7 countries (this includes the Netherlands and Sweden) and on top of that it includes some comparisons with Japan, South Korea and the USA.
As it stands today the Government is spending around £1.2bn of public investment to ensure that 95% of people can access a fixed line superfast broadband service by 2017 (note: the government defines this as a speed of 25Mbps+ but the EU and Ofcom define it as 30Mbps+), which rises to 99% by 2018 when you include wireless and mobile broadband solutions. But speed alone is only part of the comparison and the Government also factors aspects like coverage and affordability into its ranking. So how do we compare to the EU5/7?
At present, the overall coverage of superfast broadband of the UK (70%) is above most European countries (the Western European average is 58%) and is expected to improve over time, with the UK being second only to the Netherlands by 2018.
However the UK’s coverage is currently below the USA (83%), Japan (94%) and South Korea (98%), although by 2018 the study expects that the UK will have greater coverage than the USA and Japan (only just), whilst still being slightly lower than South Korea. On the other hand Japan and South Korea all have superior national true fibre optic (FTTH) networks (the UK is focused on slower hybrid fibre / FTTC/N solutions).
Sadly the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) policy tends to shun the growing importance of upstream (upload) speeds in favour of a singular focus upon downstream (download) performance. But at least in the latter case the UK can claim to be doing well because our current average of 22.6Mbps puts us ahead of the EU5 + USA but behind Sweden, the Netherlands, South Korea and Japan.
Take note that Analysys Mason has decided to use Ookla’s Speedtest.net sourced data for their comparison, which doesn’t completely separate out business lines from domestic links and weighs its score by dropping “the slowest 30% and fastest 10% – which we deem best to identify the fastest sustainable throughput” (here). In other words the average is more optimistic than the results you’ll see from Ofcom, which tends to focus almost exclusively upon home users.
The issue of price is made more complex by the fact that the Government includes market competition as part of its measure. In this respect the United Kingdom tops every other EU7 country, which is thanks to our wide selection of different ISPs and the wholesale availability of related broadband services.
In terms of price the study claims that TalkTalk offers the cheapest standalone “unlimited” style superfast broadband package in the UK (£26.20 per month), which includes the cost of line rental. This is of course out of date because their cheapest FTTC and phone option now costs from £23 a month (excluding any special offers). However France, Denmark and the Netherlands all had slightly cheaper options.
The study also looked at price as a reflection of each markets national incumbent operator (e.g. BT) and found that overall BT was the cheapest incumbent for superfast broadband, although their prices were just 10% lower than the average in the six European benchmark countries (£37.70).
Take-up of superfast broadband in the UK (18%) is currently ahead of the EU5 but remains behind Sweden and the Netherlands (note: it’s an average of 17% in Western Europe). The forecast suggests that this dynamic is unlikely to change by 2018 (though the gap between the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands will shrink) and in the meantime our level of adoption will also remain below that of the USA, Japan and South Korea.
By 2018 the study forecasts that 51% of UK premises will have superfast broadband and that will still be higher than the average Western European level of 42% for the same year.
Overall the report paints a fairly rosy picture of the United Kingdom’s superfast broadband landscape and claims that the “government’s gradualist approach to supporting rural broadband will cost significantly less than government initiatives in other countries, while still providing extensive coverage of superfast broadband“.
On the other hand critics will continue to question how future proof the UK’s focus on slower hybrid fibre (e.g. FTTC) technologies will be and warn that further investment may be needed in the future. It’s also easy to be optimistic when you only compare against a small number of countries, although in fairness the UK does do generally quite well and perhaps deserves more credit than some people give.
At the end of the day the issue of connectivity, like so many other things, comes down to a matter of time and money. Assuming you could actually find the £20bn to £30bn needed to bring a fibre optic line into every single home (Fibre-to-the-Home) then it would still take a very long time to deploy. At a time of austerity the Government have opted for what they could afford and what will get a reasonable service to most people sooner rather than later.
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