Ofcom – Full Fibre Broadband Grows to Cover 14% of the UK

Ofcom has today released their Summer 2020 update for UK broadband and mobile networks, which reveals that “full fibre” (FTTP) coverage has grown to 14% or 4.2 million premises (up from 12% in Jan 2020) and 2% (590,000 premises) are still unable to get speeds of 10Mbps+. Geographic 4G coverage is now 67% (unchanged).

The latest interim report is based on coverage and service availability information received from both ISPs and mobile network operators as of May 2020, which is thus four months more recent than the January 2020 data in their previous update.

Overall “ultrafast broadband” availability (defined by the regulator as 300Mbps+) has increased from 55% to 57% of UK premises since the last update, while “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage remains unchanged on 95% (although it’s stated that 100,000 extra premises gained access to 30Mbps+ since the last report). On top of that it’s noted how 4.2 million (14%) premises can now order a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service, which is up from 3.5m (12%) at the last update.

At present most of the growth in ultrafast connectivity comes from the expansion of Virgin Media’s hybrid coax (cable) and full fibre network, although Openreach has also been deploying both G.fast (now shelved) and FTTP technology. Similarly, lots of alternative network (altnet) ISPs are also helping to deploy FTTP at an increasingly rapid pace (Summary of Full Fibre Builds), with Cityfibre and Hyperoptic being two of the biggest movers.

We should add that Virgin Media’s upgrade to DOCSIS 3.1 technology has also made their network capable of gigabit (1000Mbps+) speeds and future 5G fixed wireless networks may also be able to achieve the same in some areas, provided enough spectrum and capacity exists to support them. All of this should help toward the Government’s ambition for making gigabit speeds available to every home by the end of 2025 (here).

The improvements in fixed line coverage also means that the number of premises which cannot get a “decent broadband” (10Mbps+) service is virtually unchanged on 2% or 590,0000 (down slightly from 608,000 at the last update). A download speed of at least 10Mbps and an upload of 1Mbps represents the specification for the UK Government’s imminent broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO), which began in March 2020.

Take note that if we include 4G and fixed wireless networks into the mix for USO delivery then the gap drops to around 180,000 premises (Ofcom doesn’t give a precise figure in this update). Speaking of which, 4G mobile networks have seen outdoor coverage by all operators combined (EE, Three UK, O2 and Vodafone) hold steady at 97%, while geographic coverage from all operators is also unchanged on 67% since the spring update (the new Shared Rural Network agreement will eventually start to change that).

Summer 2020 Coverage Data by Region

The following table summarises the latest mobile and fixed broadband coverage figures for Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland individually and you can get more detail by downloading the full Summer 2020 Update (PDF).