Global Broadband Lines Top 1.34bn as UK Full Fibre Take-up Slows
New research from Point Topic has revealed that world fixed broadband lines grew by 1.87% (24.59 million) in Q3 2022 to end the quarter on a total of 1.34 billion connections. But the subscriber growth rate of “full fibre” (FTTP/B) networks in the UK appears to have slowed in recent quarters.
As usual, the largest regional broadband market of East Asia has maintained the lion’s share of net additions of fixed broadband subscribers – reaching 65.5% in Q3 2022, which is mainly due to China’s market size and more than 15 million fixed broadband subscribers being added there. By comparison, the whole of Europe (inc. UK) accounts for just 5.62% of net adds in the last quarter. But it’s the changes in technology that we’re most interested in.
The data shows that, overall, both cable (hybrid fibre coax) and copper (ADSL, SDSL) based broadband connections continued to lose market share as full fibre lines cannibalised their customers. Between Q3 2022 and Q3 2021, the number of cable (Hybrid Fibre Coax) and ADSL broadband connections saw their market shares shrink further to 17% and 9.4% respectively, while the share of FTTH connections has increased to 61.4% (FTTB accounted for another 4% of the global total). See below for the annual change.
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However, it’s interesting to take a look at the quarterly growth of FTTP/B subscribers in Q3 2022, since the United Kingdom seems to have vanished from the top list. Back in Q3 2021 the UK was, according to Point Topic, reporting a quarterly growth rate for FTTH subscribers of 12%, placing us in 4th position out of the top 15 countries for related growth. But in the latest table, the UK doesn’t even register.
In terms of the historical trends, the UK reported quarterly growth, this time for both FTTH and FTTB subscribers combined, of 12.5% in Q4 2021, before vanishing from the table in Q1 2022 and then re-appearing to record a strong growth rate of 12.9% in Q2 2022.
We haven’t seen a sharp decline or stalling of adoption during the Q3 2022 period – using our own data sources, thus our assumption is that the UK simply fell a little below Point Topic’s subscriber threshold for inclusion in the latest report.
Top 15 markets by FTTH/B growth rates
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Speaking more generally, the research did note that FTTH/B subscriber growth was overall slower than in Q2 2022, which it put down to the current economic woes. “As recession started to bite … consumers were more reluctant to switch to more advanced broadband plans, slowing down fibre broadband adoption,” said the report.
However, it’s worth noting that the United Kingdom does still appear when we look at the top countries by raw FTTH/B net additions, where we place 7th in the table (390,000 subscribers added). This is an identical figure to the one recorded in Q2 2022, although it is sharply down on the 720,000 seen in Q1 2022. We’ll be keeping an eye to see how this changes as the year progresses.
Top 10 markets by FTTH/B broadband subscriber net additions
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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So UK full fibre slows and yet we are told that we can get it for the same price as FTTC. The problem is providers are pushing the faster more expensive speeds with get faster broadband and people look at the price, look at what they have and decide that what they have works for them
If someone is paying around £24 a month for a service that is doing what they need, then why are they going to spend more on something that they are not going to get the benefit from?
FTTP slowing down is not going to go down well with Openreach.
I can get the same speeds as i have now for the same price except i dont need any new cabling to achieve that. Yes i could get more for more money but realistically i dont need any more speed . Il stay with copper for now as i dont want the disruption of additional cabling added to my property . I would imagine this is also the case for a small percentage of homes
Yes, that is what I think as well. It is not just about the fibre itself, and a extra box, that is not really a problem as the ONT would be behind the TV, the problem, would be how would I reorganise my network as I would then have to put a second cable running down the skirting board and behind the TV. Keeping a router behind the TV would not be a good idea.
Alot of times you can ask to stay on the same package, but still be forced to upgrade the line to fttp. If its in the roll out openreach have put a stop on your exchange for fttc. This means when you regrade or make any order linked to the Line it will notify or and trigger the new line request.
For most customers simply upgrading to fttp on the same package (e.g f2/halo on bt) would lead to a speed increase as you see lines with well below 80mbps
Hi Oatcakes, I get 36Mb/s with my FTTC connection, not possible to get any more due to line length from cabinet, but then I only pay for the 36Mb/s package. No stop for FTTC at our exchange YET, I doubt Openreach have got anywhere near the percentage of coverage in the city to do that. I don’t know if there is a place where I could get that info. You say I could stay on the same package and yes I know that, I am with plusnet and they do have a FTTP 36Mb/s package, but I don’t see the point in changing to get the same speed, but it is a little cheaper by a couple of quid a month. I think it will be more difficult for plusnet to force people to fibre as they don’t offer any voice option, while it is not a problem for me, it will be for people who still rely on their home phone.
If the rumours are correct and BT will get rid of Plusnet and move people to EE, then that may be a different thing, but if they do that I will not stay with plusnet as I don’t want to be on EE or BT. Plusnet is run differently to BT and EE, better customer service and their routers are not full of junk.
Still have six months before my contract runs out and to be honest if now broadband still offer what they now then I may move to them as the prices are good, but they only offer FTTc which is fine for me.
We will see what happens in six months time, also see how the money tree blooms, with prices going up including rent and council tax, I know I am getting a pay rise, but I am still not sure I will be any better off.
So much effort and investment being expended to overbuild areas already served and the excruciatingly slow rollouts to so many other areas are going to massively affect take up. If you’re 62% overbuilt with Virgin and 25% overbuilt with OR like Cityfibre there’s someone, somewhere is going to miss out.