Feb 2023 – UK Top and Bottom 10 Local Authorities by Full Fibre Cover
A new biannual update from Point Topic has revealed how the top and bottom 10 UK local authorities have changed to December 2022, at least with respect to their coverage of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks. In addition, more than 1.3 million premises can now choose between at least three independent fibre ISPs.
Just to recap. At the end of 2022 some 43.2% of the United Kingdom (13.7 million premises) were able to access a full fibre network, which is up from 29% (9m premises) a year earlier. Across the country, more than 1.3m premises can also now choose between at least three independent fibre ISPs (this of course excludes Virgin Media’s older hybrid fibre coax network – covering 14.3m premises).
In total, independent full fibre providers (excluding Openreach, Virgin Media and KCOM) – often referred to as Alternative Networks (AltNets) – passed 5.8 million premises, having added half a million premises in just the last two months of 2022 alone.
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Among altnets with at least 50,000 premises passed, Brsk had the highest annual growth, from just 1,000 premises at end-2021 to 100,000 at end-2022. CityFibre, Toob, Jurassic Fibre and Fibrus also more than doubled their fibre networks during 2022. But we should point out that this data is based on independent analysis, rather than official claims (this sort of data sometimes lags a few months behind the latest developments).
However, on the flip side, some AltNets, like Trooli, appeared to show a decline in build pace, and we already have an idea why (here). But the lower pace of build at ITS Technology and OFNL is perhaps more reflective of their differing scale and focus. OFNL is more focused on new build homes and so generally grows fairly slowly, while ITS is more of a business fibre provider.
The chart below also seems to miss out some rapidly growing AltNets, such as Netomnia (YouFibre), F&W Networks and Zzoomm, but that may be partly because the data analysis has yet to catch up with their pace of change in 2022.
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Naturally, the top ten UK local authorities for FTTP coverage tends to reflect urban areas, particularly those that have been building commercial networks for longer than others (e.g. KCOM’s deployment in Hull). By comparison, the bottom local authorities are usually much more rural. The good news is that even the bottom dwellers are showing some FTTP growth.
Top and Bottom 10 UK Local Authorities for FTTP Coverage
Remember that this report only looks at full fibre (FTTP/B) networks, thus it’s excluding the impact of Virgin Media’s older – but still gigabit-capable – coax cable broadband network.
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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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This chart completely debunks the hyperoptic announcement lol
It is good that Milton Keynes is getting there as their broadband was awful, mainly due to their aluminium lines.
Since they have missed out Zzoomm I am surprised that we are not at the bottom of the list.
Well done Belfast, quite the unexpected one. Anyone have ideas what they are doing right over there? Seems unfortunately rare to see them at the top of a list of anything positive.
I suspect it’s the housing stock and layout of the city. Most of the residenal housing is outside of main travel routes so easier to close the street to do upgrades. Also the housing stock is either old (easy to access overhead lines) or newer apartments. Virgin Media have also been pushing into more areas of Belfast so the competition helps.
Gigantic overflowing buckets of taxpayer money. They have it coming out of their ears. The whole of NI is the same.
In Bedford, we have OFNL, BT/OR FTTP (who wouldn’t wire up my street for some reason) and now Netomnia/Youfibre XGS-PON.
We’ve gone from a town with only Virgin Media if you didn’t want VDSL2 from Openreach, to having quite a few choices in the space of about 2 years. We’ve also got some pretty good 5G here too with all networks except Vodafone having 5G across most of the town. I’m actually impressed to be honest. Not that the council had anything to do with it, in fact they’re busy trying to deny everyone 5G mast permissions.
I’m actually excited to be getting my netomnia/youfibre connection. Just wish they’d hurry up about it, was supposed to be here by now they wired up my street in August last year.
I’m in Bedford, near the hospital and no matter what ISP site / any site I use and enter my postcode I don’t see any results or messages that better internet is coming, any recommendations on sites / places to check for any info? Still stuck at 60-70Mbps max
Which Wyre Forest is it? Not the one in Worcestershire?
Surprised by the figures. Oxford City as opposed to Oxfordshire has virtually zero fibre coverage by any provider.
Netomnia is live there