techUK Calls for 90% UK Coverage of Ultrafast Broadband by 2025

A new report from techUK, which represents 950 companies in the United Kingdom’s technology sector, has called for “near universal” coverage of “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) by 2020 and 90% coverage of “ultrafast broadband” (100Mbps+) to become a reality by 2025.

The report – ‘From Good to Great: Digital Connectivity for a World Class Economy‘ – states that the UK already has a “good standard of digital infrastructure” and it then proposes a “vision” for how the industry could be transformed in order to deliver a “great” digital infrastructure.

techUK – Key features of a world class connectivity by 2020:

* Near universal superfast broadband availability to both business and household premises.

* Ultrafast connectivity widely available across residential and business premises by 2020 – at prices that allow for significant take-up. By 2025 we would expect to see at least 90 per cent of premises having ultrafast connections available to them driven by clear market demand.

* Widespread geographic wireless coverage across the UK servicing both people and ‘things’. This will be provided by wireless (including fixed, mobile and Wi-Fi) technologies, satellite services, and Internet of Things-specific networks.

* A step-change in the supply of connectivity to transport corridors. Roads will require near ubiquitous connectivity with connected and autonomous vehicles needing low latency in areas such as motorways and urban areas, whilst rail links will require the ability to support hundreds of users per train, necessitating up to gigabit speeds to be available.

* Several large scale test-pilots for 5G usage and the start of our commercial deployment.

At this point we should highlight that techUK says “near” universal coverage of 30Mbps+ “superfast” broadband. Since they don’t define “near” then the Government, which expects to achieve 97% coverage of similar speeds by around 2020, could probably claim job done on that one. The language is a bit vague but they appear to be suggesting that this could form part of a legally-binding Universal Service Obligation (USO).

However Openreach are just about the only ones who could deliver a viable 30Mbps USO by fixed lines (nobody else wants to do it, except KCOM in Hull) and they’ve already said that even getting close to that sort of speed could take until 2022 (some Satellite and fixed wireless would be used to fill-in).

Another problem with setting the USO at 30Mbps rather than 10Mbps is with how it could make it harder for alternative network operators to build their own rival networks by damaging the investment case. On this point techUK say that the USO would need to be “sufficiently targeted to minimise market distortion“, but they don’t say how. The House of Lords previously attempted to push a 30Mbps USO through but were rejected (here).

On the topic of “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) connections, the language used for 2020 is “widely available,” which is also open to interpretation. Since Virgin Media’s 300Mbps cable HFC / FTTP network should reach about 60-65% of UK premises by 2020 then that alone might well qualify.

Meanwhile the 2025 target for 90% “ultrafast” coverage could be more challenging, although if Openreach were to really drive home G.fast + FTTP and AltNets then pick-up the slack.. well it’s not impossible, but the Government would perhaps need to start thinking beyond the current parliamentary term. A large dollop of public funding may also be required to help in the economically challenging areas.

Finally, techUK use “widespread” to describe their desired level of geographic wireless coverage, which is once again rather vague and thus mobile operators like EE could perhaps already claim to have achieved that via 4G networks (currently at 83% coverage and aiming for 95% by 2020).

Julian David, CEO of techUK, said:

“From the commuter on the move to police officers on the beat to farmers harvesting crops and businesses engaged in advanced and multinational manufacturing value chains, world class digital connectivity underpins the transformation of nearly every sector of the UK economy.

As the UK looks to reposition itself as Global Britain, improving digital infrastructure will also incentivise investment and innovation necessary to raise productivity and deliver economic growth for the whole country.

Establishing more effective and efficient partnerships across all levels of Government and with public agencies and industry is fundamental to the UK achieving the high quality, secure, and resilient digital infrastructure that is needed for the 2020s and beyond.”

In terms of what changes might be needed in order to support techUK’s ambition, the report suggests that the Government would need to start setting some post 2020 targets and at the same time they’d need to “lower unnecessary costs to network deployment driven by inconsistencies and outdated processes at local level” (we couldn’t agree more).

The report also calls for “reform” of the tax regime to provide a consistent environment that incentivises investment, in particular they use the example of Business Rates that penalise suppliers when establishing new networks. On this point the Government are already introducing a 5 year holiday for new fibre networks (here).

On top of that techUK call on the government to ensure that “all existing assets, such as the telecoms infrastructure of Network Rail and highways agencies” be utilised (note: this wouldn’t necessarily make that much difference to national broadband coverage) and they call for “further ways to aggregate public sector demand to encourage the introduction of new players and network build“.