Ofcom Autumn 2022 Study – UK Gigabit Broadband Hits 68% Cover

Ofcom’s autumn 2022 report into fixed broadband and mobile coverage has found that “full fibre” (FTTP) now reaches 37% of the UK, while 20.2 million homes (68%) are within reach of a gigabit-capable network and 48-64% of premises can now get outdoor 5G coverage by at least one operator.

The regulator’s latest report is based on coverage and service availability information that has been received from both fixed line UK ISPs and mobile network operators as of May 2022, which is thus several months more recent than the January 2022 data in their last spring 2022 update (here).

Since January 2022, the UK coverage of fixed “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) networks has remained largely unchanged on 96%, while some 11 million homes (37%) can now order a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service via various networks (up from 9.6 million or 33% at the last update).

Ofcom also reports that gigabit-capable (1Gbps+) services are now available to 68% of UK premises (up from 66%), which is higher than the FTTP figure because most of the recent growth in gigabit connectivity has flowed from Virgin Media’s completed upgrade to their existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) lines with DOCSIS 3.1 technology. A lot of overbuild between HFC and FTTP is also taking place in dense urban areas.

All of this work should help to support the UK Government’s new £5bn Project Gigabit programme, which aims to further improve the picture for gigabit speed connectivity by using state aid to target connectivity improvements toward the final 20% of hardest to reach premises (i.e. helping to extend gigabit coverage to at least 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025 and then “nationwide” by 2030).

The improvements in fixed line coverage also mean that the number of premises which cannot get a “decent broadband” (10Mbps+) service is currently 513,000 (around 1% of the UK), which shrinks to just 83,000 premises if you include delivery via fixed wireless and 4G broadband services. The 513k figure is actually an increase from Ofcom’s last report, when it was 506k, which is more related to the regulator’s data modelling.

Just to remind readers, a download speed of at least 10Mbps and an upload of 1Mbps represents the core specification for the UK Government’s new broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO), which began in March 2020 and also allows for the use of both fixed line and wireless solutions.

Speaking of wireless services, 4G mobile networks have seen geographic coverage across all network operators (EE, Three UK, O2 and Vodafone) increase slightly to a range of 79-87% (up from 79-86%). The new £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) agreement will eventually start to change that, but it’s a slow burn.

Finally, on 5G coverage, Ofcom states that some 48-64% of UK premises can now get outdoor coverage by at least one operator (up from 47–62%), but this collapses to just 5-12% when looking at outdoor coverage by all operators combined (up slightly from 4-12%). Suffice to say, there’s still a long way to go.

Autumn 2022 Coverage Data by Region

The following table summarises the latest mobile and fixed broadband coverage figures for Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland individually, although you can get a bit more detail by downloading the full Autumn 2022 Update (PDF).