Ofcom – No “Fibre Broadband” for the UK’s Final 5 Percent of Premises

The CEO of the United Kingdom’s communications regulator, Sharon White, has told a Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Parliament that in her view those who live in the final 5% of premises that have yet to benefit from superfast broadband will not get “fibre” connectivity. “We are not going to get there through fibre,” said White.

Most, but by no means all, of the final 5% are in predominantly rural areas and the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme has already warned that it would be extremely expensive to reach all of those through fixed line “fibre broadband” style connectivity methods like FTTC or FTTP/H.

As such BDUK is currently conducting seven Market Test Pilots that could help to improve connectivity for the hardest to reach areas, which involves a mix of Satellite, fixed wireless and some more traditional fibre optic based solutions.

Suffice to say that it’s probably too early to say for sure that none of those in the final 5% will get “fibre“, although Ofcom seem to be leaning that way already and their opinion will carry some weight. Meanwhile many will probably not be too happy with a Satellite quick-fix.

Admittedly Ofcom are broadly correct as it does quickly become very expensive, not least due to the lower population sizes often making it difficult to gain a return on the investment. But we still think there will be some areas in the final 5% that can benefit from better fixed line connectivity, as altnets like B4RN have clearly demonstrated, and thus a simple catch-all statement like the one Ofcom gave won’t always reflect the diverse reality.

Check out the video below, although the embed isn’t perfect so you may wish to use full-screen mode or view direct.

Credits to Thinkbroadband for the spot.