Gigabit Broadband Still Top Digital Priority for UK Councils

Technical UK consultancy firm FarrPoint has today published their second annual (2024) survey of digital leaders at councils across England, Scotland and Wales. The results reveal that getting more areas covered by gigabit broadband is still the top priority for the second year running, while 5G divides opinion.

The report – FarrPoint Digital Connectivity Survey 2024 (PDF) – found that 47% of respondents chose gigabit broadband (1000Mbps+) as their number one priority, with another 30% as second. Getting 100% of their area covered by at least “super-fast” (30Mbps+) connectivity featured as the second-highest priority for councils.

However, the importance of 5G mobile continues to divide opinion. Even though respondents said 5G was important to them, none picked 5G as their top priority for 2024. Ensuring more areas covered by the older 4G service was also ranked as a higher priority than 5G on average, suggesting that the business case and additional benefits that 5G could potentially deliver have not yet been widely demonstrated.

On the upside, 51% of councils who responded said they now have an up-to-date digital connectivity strategy (up from 43% in Jan 2023), but around 11% still have no digital connectivity strategy at all and almost 30% don’t have a digital champion (i.e. somebody dedicated to tackle the problem and for engaging with network operators).

Elsewhere, local infrastructure deployment challenges – such as issues around street works, permits and inconsistent planning processes – overtook a lack of central government funding as the biggest perceived barrier to improved digital connectivity.

Speaking of which, it also appears that there remains a perceived lack of market interest in deployment, with this ranking third on the list of barriers to deployment for the second year in a row.

Next up, affordability is seen by councils as the biggest barrier to residential take-up of digital connectivity services, reflecting the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. But the growing increase in awareness of cheaper social tariffs for broadband and mobile, as well as generally cheaper and faster alternative full fibre networks, should help to tackle that.

Dr Andrew Muir, Chief Executive at FarrPoint, said:

“This is the second year of our connectivity research with local authority digital leaders, and it was interesting to see what’s changed – and what hasn’t – since our last report a year ago.

Some great progress has been made on digital connectivity within councils, but there are still areas for improvement. For example, it was clear from the responses that many local authorities are under significant financial pressure, which is, at times, leading to a reduced focus on supporting the digital connectivity rollout and take-up of services.

It was disappointing to see that local issues, such as the planning process and permits, were seen as this year’s biggest barrier to improving digital connectivity. I’d encourage councils to work together with other public bodies, central government and telecoms operators to tackle these challenges, because they are definitely surmountable.

During the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, councils could also be doing more to encourage take-up of improved connectivity services among their residents. There’s a widely held perception that these are unaffordable, but we’ve seen many cases where improved services are just as cheap, or even cheaper, than existing services.

I also hope to see a change in approach to net zero, to reflect the pivotal role that better connectivity can play in achieving the country’s environmental targets. Net zero isn’t someone else’s problem – digital departments can make a significant contribution.”

Finally, there has been a notable increase in awareness and preparedness for the various forthcoming connectivity service switch-offs. For example, only 2% of respondents had not started planning for the migration from copper to fibre broadband, compared to 27% last year. However, 21% were still to put plans in place for the 2G and 3G switch-off, which are already under way.