The latest batch of independent data has revealed the top 25 local authorities across the United Kingdom with the highest availability of ultrafast “full fibre” (FTTP / FTTH) broadband ISP connectivity and their change since 2017. Locations such as Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire and Cornwall come top.
The data, which has been produced by Andrew from Thinkbroadband, shows that Hull and East Yorkshire have the most coverage in the UK, which are both as a direct result of KCOM’s on-going Lightstream roll-out that is dominated by their ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (see today’s KCOM news).
Similarly Cornwall also appears near the top, albeit thanks to a huge public-private partnership style investment with Openreach (BT). Funnily enough the situation in Cornwall has also been the subject of an indirectly related news story today (here), which talks more about the local FTTP developments and saves me having to repeat myself.
Meanwhile many of the other areas have been boosted by similar roll-outs from Gigaclear, Hyperoptic, B4RN, Community Fibre, Virgin Media and various other “full fibre” providers. For example, Cityfibre’s joint FTTP deployment alongside TalkTalk in York has clearly had an impact.
Suffice to say that we are seeing a significant ramping up of civil engineering work, although it will need to go a lot faster to meet the Government’s initial ambition of 15 million premises by 2025 and then nationwide to all by 2033 (here). The latter date would require a huge public investment and is currently just a vague aspiration.
At present just 5% of the UK can access such a network or 1.4 million premises and ideally we need to be adding around 2 million per year just to meet the Government’s aspiration, which is an incredibly difficult task.
Top 25 UK Local Authorities for Full Fibre Broadband
Rank | Local Authority | % of premises with full fibre (2018) | 2017 |
1 | City of Kingston Upon Hull | 84.70% | 58.25% |
2 | East Riding of Yorkshire | 39.08% | 36.77% |
3 | Cornwall | 35.79% | 31.95% |
4 | Tower Hamlets | 35.42% | 27% |
5 | City and County of the City of London | 34.75% | 32.35% |
6 | York | 32.79% | 24.7% |
7 | Ards and North Down | 30.82% | no data |
8 | Cotsworld District | 29.19% | 21.18% |
9 | Spelthorne District | 28.98% | 27.39% |
10 | Newham | 25.44% | 11.94% |
11 | West Berkshire | 24.01% | 21.93% |
12 | Waltham Forest | 22.24% | 21.27% |
13 | Wandsworth | 21.81% | 8.99% |
14 | Bournemouth | 20.67% | 20.46% |
15 | Rutland | 19.32% | 16.01% |
16 | City of Westminster | 19.09% | 10.31% |
17 | Sir Ceredigion – Ceredigion | 18.70% | 7.31% |
18 | Southwark | 18.56% | 8.82% |
19 | Sir Yns Mon – Isle of Anglesey | 18.44% | 12.57% |
20 | Powys | 18.13% | 12.13% |
21 | Milton Keynes | 18.12% | 13.43% |
22 | Fenland District | 17.05% | 0.54% |
23 | Tewkesbury District | 16.90% | 3.24% |
24 | Gwynedd | 15.58% | 11.71% |
25 | South Northamptonshire | 15.41% | 10.39% |
Good to see some really big jumps for instance Wandsworth 10 to 20%. Now, while most of that is social housing and new build, for instance the embassy quarter and the Ram brewery sites, it is still a lot of premises that nobody needs to worry about connectivity for for an awful long time.
But also disappointing to see some authorities asleep at the wheel with Bournemouth for instance at no real change. Can that be right as I though VM were doing work in that area or does the data not allow VM FTTP-RFROG as it is not pure FTTP? Andrew?
I’m not sure how much FTTP Virgin has in Bournemouth, but a big chunk of that will be coming from the legacy FTTH network that Cityfibre acquired after the fall of i3/H2O some years ago. Since then they haven’t done much with that fibre and at the last attempt I found you couldn’t even sign-up with the linked ISP, Gigler.
Openreach doesn’t have any real FTTP in the area, but they do have a growing base of G.fast.
@MJ
You are right: I was getting confused with the VM deployment in New Milton etc which is where relatives live.
The i3/H2O thing is suggestive of poor records being available as to how the network was set out and some failures that therefore are hard to find and fix. I can’t imagine why else you would not want to earn cash from something that you already own.
One nasty scenario when a business goes under is that all critical data is cloudy and that the bill to the cloud provider is not paid and then the bit barn deletes the data. Or the Administrator doesn’t see the value in paying the bill and therefore…..
Or the other is that a cheesed off employee wipes the lot in a fit or pique for an unpaid month of salary etc
Although it is very off topic there is a frequently repeated story that one of the old cable companies let a lot of the network design team go, after they were taken over, and the last time anyone saw the network layouts was in a dumpster. It was all A1 and A0 paper at that time. I have heard the same story from four people. Hence there are no original design records for that area of London. It has been remapped since then using Cat & Jenny oscillator through the braid: anyone with any tech knowledge will know exactly whom we are talking about……..
A familiar tale. The law probably should put in better base record keeping requirements.
(As an aside an amusing recent project saw an water pipe damaged laying fib. As it was in several places and the pipe was c1950s they decided to lay new alkathene. When they connected the house up they found they had water at one end of the houses but not the other. Many many days later they worked out that they had two mains entries! One for each half of the house!)
Disappointing to see no Scottish local authorities in the top 25
The SNPs ego and the delays of r100 has really not helped.
How accurate are these figures? My brother-in-laws address over on TBB tools/checkers/maps returns as NO Openreach/BT FTTP or VM FTTP available yet his whole road has both available.
TBB is often a bit behind the latest roll-out because it takes time to verify that new deployments are actually live. Of course you could help them by dropping an email into their team.
After reading the story and seeing how well Kcom is doing i decided to feed Kcoms own site and TBB postcode checker an address of more than a few years back when i was living up there for a temporary 9 month period whilst doing a course for my old job.
Kcoms site returned the postcode no issues informing me it is now capable of their 400Mb service, but TBBs postcode check did not even recognise the postal code at all. So ironically and amazingly (compared to the ADSL 7Mb i had back then with Kcom) in this case the 84.70% figure for KCOM may actually be better 😀
@MarkJ Thanks will try to remember to give them an email by end of the week 🙂
His home though is not what i would call new deployment (or new property) Openreach/BT FTTP has been there since 2016 and Virgin Media FTTP as part of project lightning since around march(ish) of 2017.
The least expensive lightstream package from k.com is£42 per month for 200 GB of data. It would be interesting to see how this compares with other fibre broadband suppliers.
I have seen some of the tariff prices from various suppliers and all bar 1 do ‘Tiered’ access (various speeds and limits for variable prices)
Only 1 company does ‘Full Throttle’ (900MB+ and unlimited Data) and that is TalkTalk in York
@paul £42 for a 200Mb product i would say falls in the middle pricing wise. People like B4RN and other non-massive suppliers will beat that speed and price quite easily and offer significantly faster for around £30 a month.
Compare that £42 figure for 200Mb to Virgin or BT and it is a few quid cheaper (excluding special xxx price for xxx months which BT and Virgin often pimp to get new sign ups).
@dominic Kcom from memory on their business web pages do a 1Gbps download service but if you want it its silly money, something like £160 when i looked.
That’s only what’s on their website, but they have much cheaper full-fibre services on offer. You can get 30Mbps for as little as £26, but their cheapest 75Mbps service is £35 for 100GB. Ideal for light users.
No calls included though.
Is the isle of jersey allowed in this since it is uk terratory?
They are claiming 100% full fibre coverage
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45810063
Never mind i can now see the isle of anglesey is connected to the mainland by 2 roads so no jersey isnt valid…..
still nice p.r. for the island
Jersey is not part of the United Kingdom. It is what remains of the Duchy of Normandy, and it is ruled by the Duke of Normandy, who happens to be the Queen, who is not called queen there as a queen of a foreign nation would not wield any authority there.
This of course has very little to do with their internet connectivity but there is a very logical reason why Jersey and Guernsey are not included in the UK numbers. And quibbling about trivia is always a worthy reason to post a response…