Global Shortage of Fibre Optic Cables Hits UK Broadband Firms UPDATE

Network builders and broadband ISPs in the UK have confirmed that they’re also being affected by a shortage in optical fibre cables, which has caused significant delays to lead times on deliveries and pushed up prices of such cables by as much as 70% since March 2021. But contrary to some reports, the cable cost is not the main issue.

The latest round of concern was kicked off after the Cru Group reported that the “average” price of such cables had nearly doubled, from a low of $3.70 per fibre kilometre in March 2021 to $6.30 now. Granted, that’s a huge jump, but it still represents a small slice of the overall network build cost. You might notice it if you’re rolling out to hundreds of thousands, or even millions of premises, but it’s not the end of the world.

Cru’s data suggests that total global cable consumption increased by 8.1% in the first half of 2022 compared with last year, which helps to illustrate the problem. Naturally some countries, such as the UK, are currently slap bang in the middle of major national rollouts of gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks, which are notoriously slow and expensive projects.

Some of the reports we’ve seen on this topic have taken the alarmist approach by claiming that the high cost of fibre could stunt global deployments of new networks, but this is incorrect. The cost of such cables is still a fairly minor part of the overall consideration, particularly when compared with the huge cost of civil engineering (street works). A far bigger concern is likely to be the longer lead times for delivery of the cable itself.

Nevertheless, now is not an ideal time for a shortage of such a key commodity to be hitting networks, particularly as it comes while many broadband and digital infrastructure providers are still suffering from the global shortage of semiconductor chips. Admittedly, the latter has started to ease, but only for some sectors. We still see ISPs complaining of delays in securing the necessary routers etc.

Big operators, which order in significant bulk, may be able to mitigate the fibre supply issue. As the MD of fibre supplier STL recently told the FT: “Logically, you want to give your best terms and delivery times to your largest customers … We give first preference to BT [Openreach] and Virgin Media.”

A Spokesperson for Virgin Media (VMO2) told ISPreview.co.uk:

“While we’re not immune from global supply chain price fluctuations, we have strong relationships with our delivery partners and continue to secure the fibre optic cables we need. We remain on track to hit our targets – including expanding via Project Lightning to more than 500k premises this year and upgrading our network to full fibre services.”

However, the same is not always the case for smaller network providers, which are often playing second fiddle to the big boys. As one of several sources in the UK telecoms sector told ISPreview.co.uk, “We are having massive supply chain issues, like everyone else. We ordered 20km of SM fibre with a 9 week lead time, it’s been 15 weeks. Even major manufacturers are randomly reallocating stock to higher bidders“.

The thoughts were echoed by another operator: “The bit that I am seeing biting many people is not the pence-per-metre of the fibre, but the massive increase in lead times, with the resulting issues and costs around manpower allocation, commitments to customers, et al.” A third source added: “Fibre becoming twice as expensive per km sure is a fairly big deal but is going to be nowt compared to the civils costs, manpower, etc.”

The real challenge here is thus not only the delays to delivery, but the uncertainty about how long those delays will actually be and when the situation might get better. Businesses, much like stock markets, like certainty and the further away you get from that the more difficult it becomes to deliver on your promises. If the situation persists, then it may even start to impact larger players, but that would take time.

UPDATE 29th July 2022

We understand that Openreach are not currently experiencing any issues with sourcing fibre and, as above, they’re largely insulated against such issues or any interruption to stock supply due to their size and diversified supply chain. But the operator is known to be very conscious of the current potential risks and constantly working with partners to monitor and manage that.