UPD3 Broadband Delivery UK Project Passes 370K with BT Superfast Fibre

The Government’s national £1.2bn Broadband Delivery UK scheme, which aims to make fixed line superfast broadband speeds of “greater than 24Mbps” available to 95% of the population by 2017, has at the end of February 2014 passed around 370,000 homes and businesses. Meanwhile the DCMS Secretary of State, Maria Miller, has left the building and been replaced by Sajid Javid.

The coverage figures represent additional premises, supported by the Government’s public funding, that otherwise wouldn’t have been upgraded as part of BT’s separate £2.5bn commercial roll-out to 66% of the United Kingdom by Spring 2014 or via Virgin Media’s existing cable reach.

The latest official update has also confirmed that these figures represent “superfast” capable premises, as opposed to an overall total of those merely reached by the operators “fibre broadband” network (i.e. FTTC lines can deliver from upwards of 2Mbps).

However as this data is coming from a politician, and remains entirely based on an estimate of “premises passed“, then we would always encourage some caution because the reality can sometimes be a little more complex; real-world performance or availability will often differ.

Ed Vaizey, Communications Minister, said:

“We audit every quarter, and we estimate that by the end of February we had passed 370,000 homes with superfast broadband. We were passing 10,000 homes a week and we are now on track to pass 40,000 homes a week [by summer 2014], so the programme is accelerating all the time.”

BDUK Premises Passed History
December 2012 – Premises: 254 / BDUK Funding: £434,735
March 2013 – Premises: 16,638 / BDUK Funding: £6,767,185
June 2013 – Premises: 38,343 / BDUK Funding: £6,767,185
September 2013 – Premises: 111,968 / BDUK Funding: £10,347,568
December 2013 – Premises: 273,731 / BDUK Funding: £14,182,547
February 2014 – Premises: 370,000 / BDUK Funding: £TBA

The data suggests that the BDUK and BT roll-out is going to plan and might still be able to reach its original / first goal of 90% coverage by the end of 2015 (BDUK myths). If the current pace continues then we should be well on our way to seeing around 500k passed by the next update (unofficially it’s already passed 400K).

The above figures were released during yesterday’s Parliamentary debate on broadband in the rural North of England.

UPDATE 9:31am

We’ve spotted an interesting update on the issue of superfast broadband take-up over at the BBC, which quotes the Welsh Government as confirming that, “We are at an early stage in the programme and the marketing activity. Current take up figures for cabinets that have been in place for over one year are around 19%. This is where we would expect take up to be at this stage.”

The figure of 19% is quite good for first year BDUK upgrades and perhaps reflects that demand for better broadband is, as expected, greater in areas that have been left neglected by the commercial deployment.

UPDATE 9:38am

Breaking News – The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which manages BDUK, has just lost its Secretary of State, Maria Miller, over the recent expenses scandal. So that’s the second one gone since Jeremy Hunt quit two years ago. Who will be next and will anything change?

In a letter to the Prime Minister she wrote: “It has become clear to me that the present situation has become a distraction from the vital work this Government is doing to turn our country around.”

UPDATE 11:06am

Well that was quick. Miller has been replaced by the Conservative MP for Bromsgrove, Sajid Javid, whom currently holds the post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury.