The Government’s £1.6bn+ Broadband Delivery UK project has today published its latest take-up data to the end of March 2018 (Q1) for the state aid supported roll-out of “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) ISP networks across the United Kingdom, which continues to see strong levels of adoption.
The figures inside this article reflect the percentage of customers (homes and businesses) that have chosen to sign-up with a superfast broadband network (delivered via FTTC, FTTP or Fixed Wireless), albeit only those in areas which have been upgraded through the publicly funded BDUK programme (i.e. % subscribed of premises passed).
At present this data reflects the first two phases of the programme and not any of the most recent follow-on contracts (there’s no data for those yet).
BDUK Phases 1 (Completed Spring 2016)
Supported by £530m of public money via the Government (mostly extracted from a small slice of the BBC TV Licence fee), as well as significant match funding from local authorities and the EU. The public funding is then roughly matched by BT’s private investment. Overall it helped to extend “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) services to cover 90% of homes and businesses in the United Kingdom.
BDUK Phase 2 (Technically on-going)
Supported by £250m of public money via the Government, as well as match funding from local authorities, Local Growth Deals and private investment from suppliers (e.g. BT, Gigaclear, Airband, Call Flow etc.). This phase extended superfast broadband services to 95% of premises in time for the end of 2017, although some contracts are on-going until 2020 and will reach beyond 95%.
Phase One was broadly dominated by Openreach (BT) linked contracts, while the on-going Phase Two contracts have attracted a mix of extension deals with BT and several alternative network providers (ISP), as well as some limited use of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) technology.
Crucially the BDUK contracts include a clawback (gainshare) clause, which requires the suppliers (e.g. BT) to return part of the public investment as customer adoption of the new service passes beyond the 20% mark in related areas. The funding can then be reinvested to further improve coverage and speeds via future contracts. Efficiency savings from earlier phases can also be reinvested.
So far it looks as if a total of around £750 million could be returned via both clawback and efficiency savings, which may rise again in 2018 (details here and here). BDUK has estimated that the reinvestment could be enough to boost the UK coverage of fixed line superfast broadband networks from 95% today to around 98% by the end of 2020.
The following table breaks the take-up data down by each BDUK local authority (project area), although for the proper context these percentages should ideally be considered alongside the most recent premises passed (network coverage) data, which can be seen at the bottom of this article. Overall 47% of premises have adopted the new service (up from 44.4% at the end of 2017).
NOTE: Some of the counties have divided their deployments into separate contracts. For example, Phase One in Shropshire doesn’t include the ‘Telford and Wrekin‘ area because that is part of a separate Phase Two contract inside the same county. On top of that the contracts were all signed at different times and so are at different stages of development.
Project Area (Phase 1) | Uptake % (Sep 2017) | Uptake % (Dec 2017) | Uptake % (Mar 2018) |
Berkshire Councils | 50.1 | 51.9 | 54.3 |
Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire | 50.8 | 53.3 | 56 |
Cambridgeshire, Peterborough | 47.9 | 49.4 | 51.8 |
Central Beds, Bedford Borough, Milton Keynes | 50.3 | 52.1 | 54.9 |
Cheshire East, Cheshire West & Chester, Warrington, Halton | 48 | 50.1 | 52.9 |
Devon & Somerset (including, Plymouth, Torbay, North Somerset, Bath & NE Somerset) | 41.2 | 43.7 | 46.6 |
Coventry, Solihull, Warwickshire | 48.9 | 50.9 | 53.6 |
Cumbria | 43.3 | 45.2 | 47.7 |
Derbyshire | 40.1 | 42.5 | 45.1 |
Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole | 41.6 | 43.7 | 46.7 |
Durham, Gateshead, Tees Valley and Sunderland | 40.2 | 42.3 | 45.1 |
East Riding of Yorkshire | 45.4 | 46.4 | 49 |
East Sussex, Brighton and Hove | 47.4 | 49.7 | 52.3 |
Essex, Southend-On-Sea, Thurrock | 46.9 | 48.8 | 51.6 |
Greater Manchester | 34.3 | 36.5 | 39 |
Hampshire | 45 | 47.2 | 49.8 |
Herefordshire and Gloucestershire | 42.1 | 44.2 | 47.2 |
Isle of Wight | 38.8 | 41.2 | 43.8 |
Kent and Medway | 45.9 | 48 | 50.5 |
Lancashire, Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen | 39.4 | 41.3 | 44 |
Leicestershire | 46.6 | 48.6 | 51.4 |
Lincolnshire | 45.9 | 47.4 | 49.8 |
Merseyside | 34 | 36.2 | 39 |
Newcastle upon Tyne | 36.4 | 39.4 | 41.8 |
Norfolk | 45 | 47 | 49.7 |
North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire | 44.1 | 45.9 | 48.4 |
North Yorkshire | 49.1 | 49.4 | 51.5 |
Northamptonshire | 50.1 | 52 | 54.4 |
Northumberland | 46.9 | 48.1 | 51.1 |
Nottinghamshire | 45.8 | 48.4 | 50.9 |
Oxfordshire | 49.6 | 51.8 | 54.1 |
Rutland | 58.2 | 58 | 60 |
Shropshire | 42.5 | 44.8 | 47.6 |
Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent | 42.2 | 44.4 | 47.2 |
Suffolk | 46.7 | 48.8 | 51.6 |
Surrey | 51.1 | 53.2 | 55.5 |
West Sussex | 48.9 | 50.6 | 53.4 |
West Yorkshire | 39.4 | 41.6 | 44.1 |
Wiltshire | 48 | 50.2 | 52.6 |
South Gloucestershire | 50.9 | 53.9 | 56.4 |
Worcestershire | 46.6 | 48.6 | 51.2 |
Devolved Administrations | |||
Highlands and Islands | 39.5 | 42.1 | 45.3 |
Northern Ireland | 43.4 | 51.1 | 48.2 |
Rest of Scotland | 35.4 | 37 | 40 |
Wales | 39 | 40.2 | 42.5 |
So far in Phase 2 an overall total of 30.56% (up from 27% at the end of 2017) of premises have adopted the new service and some projects have yet to report. We note that a number of Phase 2 schemes also consist of more than one contract type and so you may see several figures being reported for certain areas in order to reflect each of those deals.
Project Area (Phase 2) | Uptake % (Sep 2017) | Uptake % (Dec 2017) | Uptake % (Mar 2018) |
Berkshire | no data | 8.2 , 2.5 | 20.8, 3.1 |
Black Country | 17.8 | 21.8 | 25.3 |
Bucks & Herts | 20.9 | 17.2 | 26.8 |
Bedford & Milton Keynes | 20.9 | 23.9 | 29.7 |
Cambridgeshire | no data | no data | no data |
Cheshire | 34.8 | 36.2 | 36.5 |
Cornwall | 21.9 | 21.9 | 26.7 |
Cumbria | 18 | 20 | 24.5 |
Derbyshire | 23.6 | 24.4 | 27.7 |
Devon & Somerset | 5.7 | 6.6 | 9.8 |
Dorset | 13.8 | 21 | 28.5 |
Durham | 21.4 | 22.1 | 23.7 |
East Riding (Yorkshire) | 27.2 | 33.5 | 39.2 |
East Sussex | 31.9 | 39.6 | 45.5 |
Essex | 28.2 | 30.3 , 15.4 | 32.9 , 26.8 |
Greater Manchester | no data | no data | no data |
Hampshire | 19.3 | 24.1 | 27.5 |
Herefordshire & Gloucestershire | no data | 25.2 | 30.9 |
Kent | 23.9 | 30.7 | 35 |
Lancashire | 21.2 | 24.8 | 28.4 |
Leicestershire | 24.1 | 24.4 | 26.6 |
Lincolnshire | 24.1 | 26 | 31.1 |
Norfolk | 33.7 | 35.2 | 38.3 |
North Lincolnshire | 25.5 | 28.3 | 30.9 |
North Yorkshire | 49 | 47.4 | 46.3 |
Northamptonshire | 26.1 | 30.7 | 34.7 |
Northumberland | 32.8 | 37.6 | 36.3 |
Nottinghamshire | 30.1 | 31.9 | 35.5 |
Oxfordshire | no data | no data | no data |
Rutland | no data | no data | no data |
Shropshire | 9.7 | 13.7 | 17.4 |
South Gloucestershire | 19.4 | 23.9 | 27.7 |
South Yorkshire | 24.5 | 23.6 | 27.4 |
Staffordshire | 20.7 | 30.6 | 33 |
Suffolk | 32.3 | 35.3 | 38.4 |
Swindon | no data | 3.6 | 4.6 |
Telford & Wrekin | 30.2 | 32.6 | 36.4 |
Warwickshire | 37.8 | 37 | 41.2 |
West Oxfordshire | no data | no data | no data |
West Sussex | 26.8 | 32.7 | 35.6 |
West Yorkshire | 20.7 | 24.4 | 28.5 |
Wiltshire | 25.4 | 29 | 32.3 |
Worcestershire | 33.1 | 36.1 | 42 |
Devolved Administrations | |||
Highlands and Islands | no data | no data | no data |
Northern Ireland | 20.3 | 20.8 | 22.9 |
Rest of Scotland | no data | no data | no data |
Wales | no data | no data | no data |
IMPORTANT: Take-up is a dynamically scaled measurement, which means that at certain stages of the scheme it may go up or even down depending upon the pace of deployment (i.e. premises passed in any given time-scale), although over time the take-up should only rise.
Explained another way, earlier phases of the roll-out were easier and faster to deploy, so you could expect to see a bit of a yo-yo movement with the take-up % sometimes falling if lots of new areas were suddenly covered. Some contracts are also younger than others and will thus take time to catch-up. However BDUK’s roll-out pace is slowing as it reaches tricky rural areas (Phase 2), which will give take-up a chance to climb.
A number of other factors can also impact take-up, such as the higher prices for related “fibre” services, as well as customers being locked into long contracts with their existing ISP (they can’t upgrade immediately) and a lack of general awareness (locals don’t always know that the faster service exists) or interest in the new connectivity (if you have a decent ADSL2+ speed and only basic needs then you might feel less inclined to upgrade).
The fear of switching to a different ISP may also obstruct some services. In other cases the new service may run out of capacity (i.e. demand is higher than expected), which means that people who want to upgrade are prevented from doing so until Openreach resolves the problem, although the scale of this issue is fairly small.
Now, for some context, here’s the latest progress report on related contracts for the same period.
Total BDUK Funding | Total Local Body Funding (Councils etc.) | Total Contracted Premises | Delivered to Date (Mar 2018) | |
Bedford & Milton Keynes | £8,130,000 | £9,443,694 | 56,269 | 45,308 |
Berkshire | £5,153,017 | £4,603,250 | 43,723 | 26,837 |
Black Country | £3,780,000 | £3,780,000 | 40,011 | 36,416 |
Bucks & Herts | £10,837,000 | £11,415,000 | 94,428 | 75,467 |
Cambridgeshire | £8,250,000 | £17,750,000 | 105,850 | 100,103 |
Cheshire | £6,461,000 | £16,091,055 | 82,468 | 77,394 |
Cornwall | £5,960,000 | £12,529,786 | 15,288 | 8,347 |
Cumbria | £19,959,519 | £18,798,000 | 120,065 | 116,776 |
Derbyshire | £9,579,550 | £9,580,000 | 103,755 | 90,880 |
Devon & Somerset | £57,510,245 | £39,187,538 | 344,835 | 285,073 |
Dorset | £13,741,841 | £12,349,470 | 79,874 | 74,872 |
Durham | £12,786,267 | £11,763,000 | 112,898 | 107,972 |
East Riding (Yorkshire) | £10,507,459 | £5,193,079 | 49,510 | 47,864 |
East Sussex | £13,640,000 | £17,000,000 | 70,040 | 60,961 |
Essex | £14,254,755 | £14,254,755 | 155,871 | 104,412 |
Greater Manchester | £3,440,000 | £5,923,000 | 41,363 | 39,860 |
Hampshire | £15,262,307 | £14,180,000 | 106,434 | 81,019 |
Herefordshire & Gloucestershire | £31,090,658 | £27,246,760 | 152,367 | 118,177 |
Highlands & Islands | £50,830,000 | £75,600,000 | 149,730 | 140,491 |
Isle of Wight | £2,490,000 | £2,490,000 | 17,617 | 17,649 |
Kent | £17,063,509 | £14,998,391 | 137,881 | 134,878 |
Lancashire | £14,670,000 | £22,540,000 | 147,334 | 142,171 |
Leicestershire | £7,968,895 | £10,884,647 | 74,479 | 68,997 |
Lincolnshire | £16,110,000 | £17,910,000 | 137,949 | 125,683 |
Merseyside | £5,460,000 | £4,374,000 | 43,905 | 42,946 |
Newcastle | £970,000 | £945,131 | 6,760 | 6,697 |
Norfolk | £24,650,000 | £24,210,000 | 202,367 | 182,438 |
North Lincolnshire | £4,181,242 | £1,880,963 | 29,442 | 28,244 |
North Yorkshire | £28,160,000 | £14,654,726 | 175,283 | 165,581 |
Northamptonshire | £9,856,669 | £11,009,000 | 79,349 | 70,934 |
Northern Ireland | £11,454,000 | £21,954,000 | 66,907 | 64,510 |
Northumberland | £10,687,867 | £11,986,750 | 49,620 | 45,970 |
Nottinghamshire | £7,850,000 | £9,288,644 | 69,401 | 62,774 |
Oxfordshire | £8,184,500 | £13,924,500 | 78,007 | 74,936 |
Rest of Scotland | £50,000,000 | £107,575,000 | 572,563 | 555,736 |
Rutland | £1,000,000 | £1,670,000 | 10,004 | 9,364 |
Shropshire | £19,317,466 | £12,722,000 | 69,711 | 54,004 |
South Gloucestershire | £3,370,000 | £3,521,123 | 21,616 | 17,194 |
South Yorkshire | £9,845,000 | £10,155,000 | 95,664 | 80,589 |
Staffordshire | £9,620,000 | £7,440,000 | 80,937 | 74,831 |
Suffolk | £26,940,000 | £26,677,050 | 123,434 | 108,874 |
Surrey | £1,310,000 | £19,020,081 | 76,981 | 71,414 |
Swindon | £950,000 | £950,000 | 20,138 | 16,381 |
Telford & Wrekin | £2,157,000 | £1,843,000 | 8,822 | 8,103 |
Wales | £66,967,000 | £156,407,000 | 728,737 | 700,364 |
Warwickshire | £15,007,144 | £15,007,144 | 74,301 | 50,797 |
West Oxfordshire | £1,600,000 | £1,556,675 | 4,788 | 0 |
West Sussex | £8,011,243 | £7,510,000 | 54,443 | 49,839 |
West Yorkshire | £11,019,827 | £11,175,487 | 103,485 | 83,269 |
Wiltshire | £9,270,000 | £16,496,000 | 83,543 | 71,620 |
Worcestershire | £8,387,032 | £11,390,000 | 66,561 | 55,636 |
£715,702,012 | £920,854,699 | 5,436,808 | 4,880,652 |
The above figures only include 24Mbps+ capable premises in BDUK intervention areas.
So my property and 70 others were on a long EO line. As part of phase 1, we were connected to a new cab outside the exchange. This gave us the same speed as ADSL so was pointless, around 11mb.
BDUK derbyshire say we have been done now and thats it. They have silently extended thier phase 2 rollout until 2020. However they have changed the target to the properties with the worse speeds rather than the most cost effective. Properties which would be covered by the upcoming USO anyway. Howeber this isnt entirely true as they are currently rolling out full FTTP to multi million pound mansions a couple of miles away who already had the same FTTC speeds we get which is rather upsetting.
So since BDUK day they are done with us and we are not covered by the USO, does this mean we cant expect any kind of upgrade within the next 20 years without paying for it ourselves? We will be in the last 1 or 2% and not get upgraded to supetfast, even though we live in a town where fibre is all around us? It is really frustrating and depressing
You can class yourself as lucky to be on as short a line as you are. You are achieving as least three times the speed as I am. My cabinet is close to the exchange anyway (300m), so when the FTTC cabinet was installed it was too far away, with no chance of matching your ADSL2+ (our exchange is still only ADSLmax, so your upload speed won’t be as pathetic either). Then three years later they installed an infill cabinet, which although a 1km nearer is still too far away to actually give usable VDSL.
Was this as part of BDUK? How many properties are in the same situation as you?
Surely if you are only getting 11Mps then the BDUK implementation target of 24Mps+ has been missed. I can only assume that by removing the ADSL allowed them to progress with the FTTC so close to the exchange. If you cannot get Superfast then hope they are not including you in their success stats. My personal view is that there should have been a FTTpillar (or where one would have been pre 70s) so that the equipment was closer on the longer distribution cables. Yes you may be waiting some time.
All you can do is make sure you have optimised your end as much as possible (a good VDSL modem right on the incoming line using latest NTE).
I would love 11 mb we are stuck on 3 here (fast by some standards). BT/OR went past (literally) our cab and took the fiber 2 km further down the road so missing out 60+ homes. Interesting to see that Gloucestershire/Herefordshire have had a huge amount of money, we would have been connected 2+ years ago if BT/OR had connected us and Fastershire had insisted. We seem to be having Gigaclear insalled at some point from August to August 2019 (dates keep slipping and no sign of the build yet) but in all cases it is going to be double the cost of getting fiber from BT/Plusnet/Sky etc (when on offer) and we will be unable to move providers (those how can use the Gigaclear network)
At least you guys are going to get FTTP in the next couple of years.
I am going to be stuck on 11mb for the next 20 years by the look of things.
As an example of how much BDUK derbyshire are favouring certain places, post code DE4 2NZ, all of the properties here could already get 22mb+ FTTC. BDUK upgraded them all to FTTP anyway. Seems fair
As I am often accused of overstating what VDSL2 can achieve, I would say a better range to suggest for the village concerned is 7 to 15 Mbps, and thus would fit with a project adding infill (FTTP or VDSL2) to deliver more superfast premises.
HINT existing VDSL2 cabinet was around 1.2 km away in Rowsley.
Which is fair enough Andrew but how come BDUK will do places like this but when it comes to my situation (70 properties on 10mb) FTTC, BDUK say they have done everything they are willing to do. How is that fair or logical?
Fair? Don’t think that is part of the contract, what is that that there are targets and those invariably mean some are going to be missed out. If the sync is say 11 Mbps and estimates are sub superfast then should be able to be considered for further work, but depends on how many others are in same boat.
So why one area over another impossible to say, without access to lots of data and conversations
As for waiting 20 years, should be less than that, a lot will depend on the gain share and continued small chunks of FTTP via the contract, and then what happens with regard to the 100% FTTP target
@Techman: With the best will in the world they have access to the real world costs/logistics and you don’t. Just because it looks wrong to you doesn’t mean it is.
Techman, although many will groan at the mention of FTTP extensions using the spare subsidised fibre laid to serve the cabinet, it is standard non-subsidised practice anywhere in RO Ireland where EIR have installed an FTTC cabinet and there are about 8 customers to serve beyond the operational reach of an cabinet.
It has taken Henry from Rotherhithe at least 6 years to get Bermondsey 64 installed for EO lines, so you need to be keep shouting.
There is plenty of funding (£750m and counting plus all that is yet to be contracted) for Fibre extensions in rural, but your need to keep pushing the process.
No point keeping shouting cause its falling on deaf ears and i dont even get a reply. BDUK derbyshire say they have no more funding. They are targetting the worse performing areas now rather than the most cost effective. They have extended phase 2 to June 2020. Beyond that they already have a long list of areas they want to do they dont have funding for. We are not even in that list. So at best BDUK might get back round to us in 2023 if they have spare funding.
I think cause BDUK put us on a cabinet they consider that job done for us. Even though there was no upgrade in speed.
Looks like people on long lines are going to be right at the back of the queue for everything.
Do they release any stats on the level of clawback yet for the Phase 1 contracts? I am guessing that the take-up is now significantly higher than was “anticipated” in the contracts and thus some serious amounts of money must be getting earmarked for clawback. One might have thought that take-ups exceeding 50% would mean that really no subsidy is necessary (ie full clawback). Be really interesting to see some stats on this (by region, rather than just nationally as the latter would be too woolly to be of much use).
Until recently BT published an overall clawback linked prediction every quarter, while local authorities tend to give a figure but you usually have to dig through their meeting documents to find them. One reality is that the contracts must complete (c.7 years) before we know what the final figure will be.
In Q4 BT reported £536m CD against a 41% take-up. In Q1 2018-19 BT reported increase in take up to 43% without stating the CD owed.
In Q4 they begun reporting monies returning to LA’s, monies intended for rural coverage.
£130m of the CD was made available before a side letter which remains secret, to the state aid renewal prevented further use of CD without additional rounds of competition.
BT capital contribution often reported as underspend is yet to be reconciled.The latter should sit in LA Investment account for Broadband after a ‘true up’.
The recent IPSOS/MORI report is less than useless on cost analysis – chapters 3,4 and 6 should be re-written to provide additional upsides to Government.
Why is 24mbps considered “superfast broadband” Stupid name, Should be called super slow, Anything under 100mbps is pathetic.
Short sightedness from Ofcom and Government communications adopting marketing rather than technical terms. It can only get worse and speed is always relative. They now talk about the term “Fibre” but what does that mean. The only clear and fair way would be to state the speed itself preferable from to, not up to.
When I went from 1-4 Mbit/s ADSL to 50-60 Mbit/s VDSL in inner London (Rotherhithe) in 2017, I was happy, as were my neighbours. Our all-in-one cabinet (Bermondsey 64), built to replace EO lines as part of Openreach’s London Extension Project, was full in five months and gained a expansion cabinet twin a few months after that
Such a change was certainly not pathetic