2024 H1 – UK Gigabit Broadband Coverage Tops 83 Percent

ISPreview’s latest biannual UK summary of fixed broadband coverage for H1 2024 has found that “full fibre” (FTTP) ISP networks have grown to reach 67.68% of premises (up from 60.54% in H2 2023) and 83.39% are within reach of “gigabit” speeds (up from 79.86%). Continue on to see details for England, Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland.

Practically all the new gigabit-capable (1000Mbps+ or 1Gbps+) class connectivity added during 2024 so far have come from Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based network deployments via Openreach (BT), Nexfibre (Virgin Media), Hyperoptic, CityFibre, Netomnia (YouFibre), KCOM, Gigaclear and many other operators (Summary of Full Fibre Builds).

The reason why gigabit cover is currently still higher than FTTP is down to the 14.3 million premises covered by Virgin Media’s older Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network, which have been upgraded to gigabit-capable DOCSIS 3.1 technology (there’s a lot of FTTP overbuild of this in urban areas). But that project completed in 2021 and thus the focus now is almost entirely on FTTP delivery for most operators.

In addition, most of the progress on gigabit-capable coverage during 2024 is still down to commercial investment in FTTP, often with only a little support from the Government’s various voucher schemes. But the £5bn Project Gigabit scheme and its subsidised rollouts are starting to have an impact on this, albeit focused on the hardest to reach premises (e.g. rural) that typically take longer to cover.

H1 2024 Broadband Coverage Figures

Listed below is the latest independent modelling from Thinkbroadband to early July 2024 (H1 – 2024). We should point out that the figure for ‘Under 10Mbps‘ doesn’t reflect 4G mobile coverage (we’re only looking at fixed broadband), which plays a part in the official USO (see below table) but isn’t included in TBB’s mapping work. Sadly, it’s incredibly difficult to do an accurate model for mobile coverage, especially in terms of a specific performance level.

Fixed Broadband Network Availability H1 – 2024

NOTE: It’s very important to remember that Government / political coverage targets, like 85% for gigabit by 2025, reflect a national average, which can of course be better or worse for some areas (e.g. some counties may achieve higher coverage, while others could be well below that).

Take note that each devolved region (Scotland, Wales etc.) may also have its own policy and targets, which all feed into the central UK coverage figure. Furthermore, it’s worth highlighting how much of an impact newer alternative networks (Altnets) are having on all this – excluding coverage by Openreach, KCOM (Hull) and Virgin Media.

Rival Altnets were found to have covered 35.28% of the UK with FTTP by H1 2024 (up from 30.06% in H2 2023). This breaks down as 37.16% in England (up from 31.75%), 14.23% in Wales (up from 10.72%), 29.71% in Scotland (up from 25.26%) and 34.44% in Northern Ireland (up from 29.39%). But the overall coverage improvement from this will be lower due to overbuild between so many networks, particularly in urban areas.

As stated earlier, this data is an estimate and should be taken with a pinch of salt, not least because it won’t always reflect the very latest real-world position. But it’s still one of the best and most up-to-date gauges that we have for checking against official claims (Ofcom’s own data tends to be several months behind that of TBB’s).

Solutions for Slow Broadband Areas

Finally, those still stuck in sub-10Mbps speed areas will, at least for now, be left with little option but to try harnessing the flawed 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO) via BT (UK-wide) or KCOM (Hull-only). Many of those who have pursued the USO say they were offered a mobile broadband (4G or 5G) connection via EE, but those considered delivered under the USO itself usually get full fibre (FTTP) lines.

However, the reality is that some people will find they live in areas where not even the USO can cover the colossal upgrade costs of getting FTTP (here and here). The government are currently still examining support options for remote premises and are also preparing to review the broadband USO (here), which may bring some changes in the future, particularly with the new change in leadership (here).

Failing that, consumers could either try waiting to see if the problem gets resolved or consider exploring the option of a LEO satellite service (Starlink is good, if you can afford it). We would also recommend that consumers check via Three UK, Vodafone and O2 (VMO2) to see if any of those deliver better 4G or 5G mobile coverage than EE in your area (ideally by conducting your own tests, since official coverage maps are fairly useless) – see our guide to external antennas.