UPDATE Welsh Government Criticised for Delay to NGA Broadband Rollout

The Welsh Government’s Superfast Cymru contract with BT, which has been working to roll-out “fibre broadband” (FTTC/P) to 96% of Wales, has been criticised by Assembly Members for failing to deliver on its original promise to bring 30Mbps+ capable networks to all premises by 2015.

Back in 2011 the Welsh Government said they would “seek to ensure that all residential premises and all businesses in Wales will have access to Next Generation Broadband [defined as 30Mbps+] by 2015, with the ambition that 50 per cent or more have access to 100Mbps” (here).

However the eventual contract, which was supported by well over £200m in public funding from local authorities and Broadband Delivery UK, ended up only aiming to deliver 96% coverage of “world class broadband speeds” of ‘up to‘ 80Mbps (this reflected an additional 691,000 premises passed) by the end of 2015 (here).

It’s important to note that the 96% figure also appeared to reflect the raw “fibre” footprint (including sub-30Mbps speeds) rather than 30Mbps+ availability and the contract further required that 40% of all premises in the intervention area could take a 100Mbps service.

In the end BT completed the original BDUK Phase 1 contract during the end of June 2016 (here) and as a result around 90% of Wales can now access a 30Mbps+ capable fixed line broadband connection (note: roughly 30% can get 100Mbps+, albeit mostly via Virgin Media and Openreach’s FTTP). This is as opposed to the 100% that was originally promised in 2015 or even the later 96% figure that was so often touted alongside “superfast broadband” terminology. Overall 610,000 extra premises have befitted.

Russell George, Conservative AM, said (BBC):

“It’s undeniable that the Welsh Government have failed to deliver to ensure all residential businesses will have access to next generation broadband by 2015. We are well off providing universal access. Constituents keep asking me why the Welsh Government just can’t let them know when they are getting on with it.”

The comments were echoed by a number of other AMs and some, such as Plaid Cymru’s Dai Lloyd, also appeared to suggest that having a take-up of fewer than one-in-three is a poor outcome. “We need to look at the effectiveness of this campaign to ensure more make use of this technology,” said Dai Lloyd.

At the last count in Q2 2016 the take-up for Wales in related contract areas was 26.4% (here), which is well above the original expectation and has already resulted in clawback / gainshare (public investment) worth around £12.9 million being returned for a future coverage extension. A related consultation on this has already completed (here).

In response, Welsh Labour’s AM Jane Hutt (Vale of Glamorgan), Leader of the House and Chief Whip, succeeded in voting through the following response from the National Assembly for Wales.

Agreed National Assembly Statement

1. Welcomes the progress made in implementing the Superfast Cymru scheme which has brought high-speed broadband to over 610,000 premises across Wales and will provide access for an additional 100,000 further premises before project close in 2017.

2. Notes the progress of Access Broadband Cymru and its predecessor project which have provided broadband to over 6,500 premises across Wales using a range of innovative technologies.

3. Recognises the importance of high speed broadband and digital connectivity to businesses, communities and the economy in all parts of Wales and notes the Programme for Government commitment to offer fast reliable broadband to every property in Wales.

4. Notes the Welsh Government’s intention to:

a) work with Ofcom, the UK Government and network operators, to deliver universal access to high speed broadband and mobile coverage;

b) reform Permitted Development Rights in the planning system to promote telecoms infrastructure investment and network deployment;

c) reflect on the progress made by the Scottish Government through its mobile action in developing proposals in Wales; and

d) publish further information about extending fast reliable broadband access to every property in Wales.

Interestingly the above statement replaced a more critical one that had been tabled by opposition Welsh Conservative AM Paul Davies (Preseli Pembrokeshire), which would have said that the assembly “regrets that the previous Welsh Government failed to deliver on its ambition.” Labour are the dominant party in Wales, thus their more positive statement won the vote.

In the meantime the Welsh Government has already signed an extension contract, which aims to push the coverage of FTTC/P based “fibre broadband” services (they still haven’t clarified a target speed) out to a further 42,000 premises in Wales by June 2017 (here). However some earlier reports have indicated that this might not complete until around October 2017 (here). A further contract is also being developed.

Wales suffers somewhat due to its large swathes of rural landscape, where communities can be small and sparse. As such the country presents a significant technical and economic challenge for operators to upgrade and as work progresses the roll-out pace will surely slow down or become harder to accurately predict.

Never the less the work is on-going and perhaps one day the original ambition will still be achieved, even if that day is likely to come some years later than originally hoped. One other annoying aspect of all this is that for some reason the Welsh Government has scrapped their dedicated Superfast Cymru website and replaced it with a largely useless and vague information page.

UPDATE 3:02pm

The Managing Director of Welsh ISP Spectrum Internet, Giles Phelps, has sent us a comment.

Giles Phelps said:

“I think the Superfast Cymru initiative was a cheap and fast method for improving the speed and coverage of broadband in Wales. As this went through a fairly traditional public sector tender process and there was no real precedent for this type of tender, I don’t think you could have expected a different result unless more time was spent planning and researching the market.

This would have led to significant delays maybe we would only really be starting the upgrade process now. We still don’t have answers for the really hard to reach areas in Wales. The only thing we do know is it will cost a lot more money per premise to provide better speeds to the entire nation.

The important thing is that we now put more effort into making sure everyone has access to the 30Mb/s speed as a minimum and that we make significant inroads into future proofing our infrastructure to enable speeds of 100Mb/s+.

Wireless and other enhanced copper solutions should be looked at as a last resort. We would anticipate that fibre to the premise will cost approximately £1000 – £2000 per premise to install in the more remote areas, however in some cases the costs will be significantly higher. Although in many households that have access to the Superfast Broadband technology they get less than 15Mb/s (many considerably less) download speed and less than 2Mb/s upload speed. That is barely suitable for an average family now and definitely not suitable for a business.

There is no plan to improve the service to these premises unless you are willing to pay up to 10 times more for your broadband service.”

Phelps believes that the Welsh Government could improve things further by tweaking the existing ABC scheme, such as by boosting the amount of grant funding available to allow for FTTP/H solutions and adding more stringent criteria (e.g. symmetric speeds of at least 100Mbps).