Superfast Broadband Delivery UK BT Fibre Rollout Reaches 888K Premises

The Government’s national Broadband Delivery UK project, which is predominantly working with BT to make fixed line superfast broadband speeds of “greater than 24Mbps” (Megabits per second) available to around 95% of people by 2017, has now helped a total of 888,113 homes and businesses (premises passed) get faster connectivity.

The figure represents homes and businesses that have benefitted under the scheme and which otherwise wouldn’t have been upgraded as part of BT’s separate £2.5bn commercial roll-out of “fibre broadband” FTTC and FTTP technology or via Virgin Media’s existing cable (DOCSIS) network, at least not for many more years, without the extra public investment.

The figure itself represents “superfast” (25Mbps+) premises, as opposed to an overall total of those merely reached by a Next Generation Access (NGA) capable “fibre broadband” network. Put another way, the premises that are only predicted to get sub-24Mbps speeds aren’t included below (we wish there was also a table to show the split of totals).

Take note that the expenditure figures reported above represent internal BDUK administrative information on grants to local authorities in England and budget transfers to devolved administrations (e.g. Wales, Scotland etc.) related to the superfast rollout programme. Total public expenditure on the projects is higher as local authorities and devolved administrations add their own contributions, not to mention those from other sources (e.g. the EU and BT).

The expenditure figures also exclude BDUK support for Super-Connected Cities, the Mobile Infrastructure Project, the Rural Communities Broadband Fund and DCMS administrative expenditure.