Government Push Superfast Broadband to 3.84 Million Extra UK Premises

The Government’s £1.7bn Broadband Delivery UK project, which aims to expand fixed “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) cover to 95% of the United Kingdom by 2017/18 (possibly rising to 97% by 2019), has issued its latest progress update to confirm that 3.84 million extra premises have now benefited.

Take note that, prior to BDUK coming into play, commercial investment had already helped operators like BT and Virgin Media to expand the reach of superfast connections to around 70% of the United Kingdom. But those operators were slow or unwilling to invest in connecting the final 30%, which are more expensive to serve, and so the state aid fuelled BDUK project was formed.

The first BDUK target aimed make superfast broadband available to 90% of the UK by the end of 2015 (approx. 4 million+ additional premises passed) and officially that target was achieved in March 2016 (here). A second target also exists for pushing this to 95% by the end of 2017/18 (adds another 1 million+ premises).

More recently BDUK have hinted that their project might actually reach 97% coverage by absolute completion in 2019, but this is not yet official and depends upon how far the clawback (gain share) linked reinvestment and future contracts can take us.

A BDUK Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We’ll be able to confirm how much higher than 95% we’ll get to once the planning and procurement process for the additional funding is complete.”

So far BT has won the vast majority of these contracts, often without any opposition, although a few smaller ISPs like Gigaclear, UKB Networks, Cotswolds Broadband and Call Flow etc. have also picked up some smaller deals in specific rural areas.

The premises passed figure used below only reflects those able to receive superfast speeds of greater than 24Mbps. Sadly the Government do not provide an additional column for showing the overall premises passed total, which would also include those premises receiving sub-24Mbps speeds via the new “fibre” infrastructure.

It’s worth noting that the pace of deployment has started to slow as BDUK moves into more challenging rural locations, which take longer to serve and deliver fewer premises passed for each quarter of progress. The outcome is that it also costs more to cater for such areas, which is why the number of premises covered per £million of funding is in decline.

We note that the headline figures here are said to be cash based (i.e. when grants are made or budgets transferred). However on an accruals basis, which matches costs incurred to the timing of delivery, cumulative BDUK expenditure to end-March 2016 has been estimated as £500,677,799 and that equates to 7,671 premises covered per £million of BDUK expenditure (expenditure is higher for this because the work is said to have been delivered in advance of payment).

Meanwhile the Government are also examining how best to cater for those in the final 3% of difficult to reach premises and communities. As part of that they’ve already introduced a new quick-fix Satellite broadband subsidy (here) and there’s been a proposal for a new legally-binding 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (here and here).

On top of that BDUK has invested nearly £10 million to pilot 7 projects (a mix of fixed wireless, satellite and fibre optic solutions) that could help to improve connectivity for remote communities and there’s also been some vague talk of a new Broadband Investment Fund that might help to support related network providers (here).