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UK Fixed Superfast Broadband Coverage Improves to 92.5% (Q1 2017)

Tuesday, Mar 7th, 2017 (3:13 pm) - Score 1,233

The latest independently calculated coverage data has estimated that fixed line “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) networks are now available to order at 92.5% of homes and businesses across the United Kingdom. Plus “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) services are available to 51.2%.

At present the central Government’s £1.7bn Broadband Delivery UK programme aims to put fixed line “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) networks within reach of 95% of premises by the end of 2017 (BT has previously suggested that this might slip a little into 2018) and then 97% by 2020. Openreach (BT) holds most of the related contracts but a few AltNets are also involved in the later stages (Gigaclear, Call Flow etc.).

The independent data from Thinkbroadband appears to suggest that the Government is more or less holding to course, although the related targets for Wales and Scotland are a bit different (see below). On top of that it’s worth pointing out that roughly the first 70% of so-called “superfast” network coverage was delivered via private investment (e.g. Virgin Media and BT / Openreach + some alternative networks), while it’s those in the final 30% that have benefited from public funding support.

Scotland

* Current Goal: The Digital Scotland project with Openreach (BT) has already made its FTTC/P based superfast broadband network available to 89% of premises in Scotland and they’re now working towards the next goal of around 95% “high speed fibre broadband” coverage by December 2017 the end of March 2018. However the rural Highland and Islands region alone only expects to hit 86% by the end of 2017..

* Future Goal (tentative): A plan is being developed to deliver 100% “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage by 2021 (here).

Wales

Current Goal: The Superfast Cymru project with Openreach (BT) aims to make “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) services available to around 95% of Wales, although the proportion that can actually access “superfast” line speeds of 30Mbps+ is only around 90%. A further 100,000 premises are also set to be added on top of this by the end of 2017, although no clearly defined coverage % has been given for this.

Future Goal (tentative): A plan is being developed to deliver “fast reliable broadband” (we’re told this means 30Mbps+) to “every property” in Wales by 2020 (here).

Just to clarify. A lot of earlier BDUK related contracts defined “superfast” performance as delivering download speeds of greater than 24Mbps+, although many later ones preferred to use the slightly faster 30Mbps+ definition (in the grander scheme of things there’s not much coverage difference between the two). The EU also sets a 30Mbps definition, which is usually required for the most recent contracts.

Meanwhile the term “fibre broadband” or “fibre based” tends to be a much more ambiguous, although more often than not it’s used to reference the overall / raw footprint of FTTC/P networks and that may include some areas which receive sub-24Mbps speeds. This is certainly what it means below (i.e. overall fibre/NGA broadband coverage – irrespective of service speeds).

Below you can see the data for March 2017 (Q1) and we’ve stripped out some of the more confusing aspects in order to make it easier to understand. We’ve also left in the 10Mbps figures as this will be a useful gauge for understanding the scale of the proposed Universal Service Obligation (USO), although that won’t be enforced until 2020 and by then the size of the problem area will be even smaller.

Area % Fibre based % Superfast 24Mbps+ % Superfast 30Mbps+ % Ultrafast 100Mbps+ % Openreach FTTP % Under proposed 10 Mbps USO
London 96.7% 95.5% 95.23 69.1% 1.87% 0.9%
England 96% 93.3% 92.8% 54.1% 1.56% 2.8%
United Kingdom 95.6% 92.5% 91.9% 51.2% 1.43% 3.4%
Rest of Scotland 93.6% 90.7% 90.1% 44.3% 0.10% 4.4%
Wales 94.5% 90.4% 89.3% 30.7% 1.77% 5.6%
Scotland (Overall) 92.7% 88.9% 88.1% 40.2% 0.10% 5.9%
Northern Ireland 97.6% 81.4% 79.7% 28.3% 0.28% 12.1%
Scotland – Highlands and Islands 83.5% 70.1% 67.9% 0.07% 0.07% 21.9%

NOTE: The ‘Rest of Scotland’ and ‘Highlands & Islands’ regions reflect the two halves of the Digital Scotland contract, but if you find that confusing then just look at the overall total instead. As usual the most rugged, rural and generally sparse areas tend to be a bit further behind due to the obvious challenges of upgrading such locations.

A couple of extra points need to be made about this. Firstly, nearly all of that “ultrafast” coverage will be coming from Virgin Media’s cable network in urban areas. At present Openreach’s best FTTC speed is an often difficult to attain ‘up to’ 80Mbps and so it falls outside of the “ultrafast” definition, while FTTP availability (this usually delivers well above 100Mbps+) is still at a very low level.

Secondly, TBB’s data is an estimate and while imperfect it’s still one of the best gauges that we have for checking against official Government data. However, estimates should be taken with a pinch of salt, not least because they don’t always reflect the real-world reality. This is particularly true where issues like faulty lines, poor home wiring, slow WiFi and other problems can result in a much slower broadband connection that expected.

The TBB data is often also a tiny bit more pessimistic than the official progress reports from local authorities and BDUK, although the difference is fairly negligible. The Government often reports a figure that is one percentage point higher than TBB or thereabouts.

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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