ISPreview UK Survey Finds Support for Big Broadband Public Funding Boost

The government of the United Kingdom has so far committed around £1.2bn in public funding to help make fixed line superfast broadband speeds of 25Mbps+ available to 95% of the country by 2017. But the latest ISPreview.co.uk survey of 2,197 people has found that 67.2% of respondents would like even more state aid to be spent.

In particular the survey found that 19.1% would be willing invest an extra £10bn – £15bn or more of state aid funding into improving national broadband quality, which might just be enough to deliver an ultrafast (100Mbps+) capable fibre optic FTTH/P style network to the majority of homes and businesses. However a third (32.6%) said they wouldn’t spend any extra money.

Is it currently better to rollout 30Mbps+ speeds to 95% of the UK population or 1000Mbps to 50% (pick closest)?
30Mbps to 95% – 61.1%
1000Mbps to just 50% – 38.8%

How long do you think it will be before you truly NEED speeds of 100Mbps (pick closest)?
I need it now! – 45.6%
2-3 Years – 21%
6 Years or More – 13.8%
4-5 Years – 12.6%
1 Year – 6.7%

If you ran the country, how much extra public money would you put into improving broadband (pick closest)?
None! – 32.6%
£2-5bn – 21.8%
£10-15bn+ – 19.1%
£5-10bn – 13.5%
Up to around £1bn – 12.8%

Apparently more than half of the respondents don’t mind waiting a few more years for 100Mbps+ broadband speeds to become a reality. At the same time it’s interesting to note that nearly everybody does eventually expect 100Mbps+ to be a future requirement and this appears to support the wider call for extra investment. But at present there aren’t many Internet services that could take full advantage of 100Mbps.

Meanwhile the Government are only aiming for speeds of “greater than 24Mbps“, although we shouldn’t assume that development will stop at the end of the BDUK project. BT are already exploring new technologies like Vectoring, G.Fast and FTTdp. Meanwhile Virgin Media are starting to look towards DOCSIS3.1 (next gen cable standard).

Solutions like this could, in a few years’ time, potentially boost service speeds beyond the current target and probably without recourse to further public funding. But perhaps the real challenge will remain with ensuring that 100% can access superfast speeds, especially in isolated rural areas that have so far been left to wait until last.

Meanwhile this month’s new survey asks whether you’ve needed a telecoms engineer to fix a broadband or phone issue and how well they performed? Vote Here.