UK Superfast Broadband Rollout Brings BT Fibre to 508801 Premises

The Government’s national £1.2bn Broadband Delivery UK programme, which aims to make fixed line superfast broadband speeds of “greater than 24Mbps” available to around 90% of the population by the end of 2015 and 95% by 2017, has now expanded its coverage to 508,801 homes and businesses (premises passed).

As usual this figure represents homes and businesses that wouldn’t have been upgraded as part of BT’s separate £2.5bn commercial roll-out of FTTC/P technology or via Virgin Media’s existing cable reach. But pay close attention to how the investment figures have been shifting as time goes on and are referenced below.

The BDUK grants to Local Authorities (councils) and budget transfers to devolved administrations (Welsh and Scottish government’s etc.) amounted to a cumulative £58,586,408 in cash terms up to the end of March 2014, which equates to 8,685 premises covered per £million of broadband investment.

DCMS Statement

The headline figures here are cash based (i.e. when grants are made or budgets transferred). On an accruals basis (which matches costs incurred to the timing of delivery), cumulative BDUK expenditure to end-March 2014 has been estimated as £75,254,565 which would equate to 6,761 premises covered per £million of broadband delivery programme expenditure. Expenditure on an accruals basis is higher because work has been delivered in advance of payment.

It’s worth pointing out that the figure for the end of February 2014, which doesn’t show in the official quarterly updates but might still be useful to know, was approximately 370,000 premises. In addition, these figures represent “superfast” (25Mbps+) capable premises, as opposed to an overall total of those merely reached by a NGA capable “fibre broadband” network (i.e. those predicted to get sub-24Mbps speeds aren’t included above).

One final thing to state is that these expenditure figures also exclude BDUK support for Super-Connected Cities, the Mobile Infrastructure Project, the Rural Communities Broadband Fund and DCMS administrative expenditure. So far the progress appears to be good and it looks as if the 90% target for the end of 2015 is still viable.