UK Fixed Superfast Broadband Coverage Finishes 2017 on 94.7%

The most recent independent data for Q4 reveals that the United Kingdom ended 2017 with fixed line “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) networks having covered 94.7% of premises (94.3% if you define superfast as 30Mbps+), which suggests that the Government has hit their 95% target.

The estimate, which was produced by Thinkbroadband, wisely tends to be a bit more pessimistic than official figures (i.e. officially the Government will probably claim victory on their 95% target). The focus will now switch towards tracking the Government’s next expectation for “superfast broadband” to reach 98% by around 2020 (here), as well as the growth of “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) connectivity (e.g. FTTP/H/B, G.fast and Cable DOCSIS).

However we should point out that later Broadband Delivery UK contracts have adopted the EU and Ofcom’s higher download speed target of 30Mbps+ for “superfast” connectivity, which tends to trail around 0.3-0.6% points behind the 24Mbps+ figure (depending on location). Meanwhile those in the final 2% are expected to be catered for via the Government’s 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO).

It’s worth remembering that the first c.75% of coverage was largely achieved by commercial roll-outs from Openreach (BT) and Virgin Media (plus some altnet ISPs), while most of the final 25-30% has benefited from around £1.6bn+ of public investment via the BDUK programme. More recently another £600m has separately been earmarked to support future “full fibre” (FTTP/H) deployments (here and here).

Below you can see the latest data to the end of December 2017 (Q4) and as usual we’ve stripped out some of the more confusing aspects in order to make it easier to understand. We’ve also left in the 10Mbps figure as this will be a useful gauge for understanding the ever shrinking scale of the proposed USO for broadband, which could be introduced by 2020 (details).

NOTE: The term “fibre based” below includes fibre optic and hybrid fibre solutions, such as FTTP, FTTC / VDSL2 / G.fast and Cable (DOCSIS), albeit without any definition of speed (e.g. some FTTC lines deliver speeds below 24Mbps). Elsewhere nearly all of the below “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) coverage is coming from Virgin Media’s cable network, although Openreach, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, Cityfibre, TrueSpeed and others all have big “full fibre” (FTTP/H) expansion ambitions for related services (here, here, here, here and here) and the rapid 330Mbps G.fast roll-out to 10 million premises by 2020 should also help.

Take note that each devolved region has its own policy and targets, which all feed into the central UK target. For example, Wales has proposed a new aspiration to reach “every property” with 30Mbps+ broadband by 2020 (here) and Scotland hope to do the same by 2021 (here). The ‘Highlands and Islands‘ and ‘Rest of Scotland‘ areas above represent the two halves of Scotland’s overall roll-out programme.

Elsewhere Northern Ireland, which has good “fibre based” coverage, remains one of the weaker entries and they’re clearly struggling to deliver speeds of 24Mbps+ to those within its reach. However the recent deal between the DUP and UK Government, which gifted £150 million to help N.I “provide ultra-fast broadband” to its population (here), may help to resolve that.

As stated earlier, this data is only an estimate and should be taken with a pinch of salt, not least because it won’t always reflect the real-world (this is particularly true where issues like faulty lines, poor home wiring, slow WiFi and other problems can result in much slower speeds than expected). However it’s still one of the best gauges that we have for checking against official Government claims (they’re also based on an estimate).

NOTE: It’s very important to remember that Government / political targets like 95% or 98% reflect a national average, which can of course be better or worse for some specific areas (e.g. a few may achieve universal coverage, while others could be well below that level).