UK vs Europe – Brief Comparison of National Broadband Plans

The on-going FTTH Conference 2016 event in Luxembourg has just released an interesting visualisation, which reveals that the United Kingdom is one of the few European states without a firm target for delivering 100% superfast broadband (30Mbps+) coverage by 2020.

At present the United Kingdom’s Broadband Delivery UK programme aims to ensure that 90% of the country can access a superfast broadband (24Mbps+) connection by around spring 2016 and this will rise to 95% by 2017/18 (BT suggests they may actually hit 96%), although we appear to be one of the few EU states to still be stuck without a solid plan for tackling the final 4-5%.

Indeed most other EU states appear to be aiming to match the European Commission’s Digital Agenda goal(s), which seeks to ensure that every home in the EU can access a 30Mbps+ capable broadband connection (plus 50% subscribed to a 100Mbps+ service) by the year 2020.

Sorry for the low quality picture, but you can load a slightly bigger one by clicking on it.

It’s notable that a few states, such as Denmark, are also aiming to make 100Mbps+ services available to 100% of their country by 2020 and Germany plans to deliver 50Mbps to all by 2018. Most of these plans are also reliant upon a similar mix of hybrid-fibre (HFC, FTTC etc.) and pure fibre optic (FTTH/P) connectivity methods, much like the United Kingdom.

Some may also point out that the UK has a lesser speed target of 24Mbps+, although in reality the difference in actual coverage between 24Mbps and 30Mbps+ capability is tiny (around 1% or less).

One other thing that should be considered is the difference between what is planned and actual deployment progress. The UK currently bests the big boys of Germany, France, Italy and Spain (here) and we’re in the top 10 overall states for Next Generation Access (NGA) coverage (here). Mind you the linked reports are a little out of date and we could do with something more current.