Gigabit Broadband Coverage Reaches 85 Percent of UK Premises
New independent data has revealed that 85.06% of premises across the United Kingdom can now access a gigabit-capable broadband ISP connection (1000Mbps+), which is up from 80% at the end of 2023 and means the first target under the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme has likely been achieved. The figure drops to 70.84% when only looking at full fibre (FTTP) lines.
As usual, it’s necessary to point out that the figure for “gigabit-capable broadband” coverage is currently much higher than full fibre (FTTP) because it includes both the impact from FTTP builds and Virgin Media’s Hybrid Fibre Coax (Cable / DOCSIS 3.1) network, as well as a bit of FTTB. All of these can deliver gigabit download speeds, and there’s a lot of overbuild between them in urban areas (Virgin will upgrade all their coax to FTTP by 2028).
The vast majority of this rapid network expansion is currently still being dominated by commercial deployments from numerous network operators, such as Openreach (BT), Virgin Media (O2 + Nexfibre), CityFibre, Netomnia, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and many more (Summary of UK Full Fibre Builds).
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The progress also bodes particularly well for the Government’s Project Gigabit programme, which for the past few years has been aiming to extend 1Gbps download speeds (200Mbps+ uploads) to cover at least 85% of UK premises by 2025, before hopefully achieving “nationwide” coverage (c. 99%) by around 2030 (here).
The project focuses upon the final 10-20% of hardest to reach premises (5-6 million premises exist within this area, but they won’t all need help from public funding) and we usually tend to interpret “by 2025” as meaning one of two things – A) completion by the end of a financial year (i.e. March 2025), or B) completion by the end of a calendar year (i.e. Dec 2025). The fact we’ve hit this figure today suggests Project Gigabit is a little bit ahead of schedule.
Looking forward, Ofcom’s study of Planned Network Deployments recently predicted (here) that full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP lines are currently on course to cover 95-96% of all UK properties by May 2027 (29 million premises), which rises to around 97-98% for “gigabit-capable broadband” networks (FTTP and HFC).
However, none of this will mean anything to those of you who still live in poorly served areas (often rural locations and some patches in urban locations), where the wait for something better to arrive continues to be a slow and painful one. But the fact is that the country is continuing to see both rapid and dramatic progress in the roll-out of these networks, which is making for an ever-smaller gap left to fill.
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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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Good progress, but still too late. I feel for the people in the 15% who still can’t and should be able to order up to Gigabit speeds.
One of the 15% here. Only FTTC available.
I can see 2 CBT atop of poles serving the next street over (though they are still unpopulated). Haven’t seen any work on the UG down my street.
The priority seems to have been to overlay the areas Virgin Media have a RFoG presence and new builds completed in the last year.
Vast areas including whole counties, Norfolk being 1 for example, still do not have a modern usable mobile data signal network, it never achieved 3g! and as for full fibre it’s never going to happen for the vast majority of households. Dial up speeds are common place in city suburbs and towns with no mobile back up. The UK is light years behind many European countries when it comes to communication networks regardless of what statistics may suggest.The proof is always in the usage and those who are well traveled know.
Aside from the fact that this story is about wired broadband:
I’ve been to Norfolk and my phone worked fine there. There are going to be localised issues, and perhaps people refusing to use the network that actually works best in their area, but there’s no need to exaggerate the problem.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen “dial up speeds” in years.
Dismissing independently compiled statistics is an interesting tactic (especially when they do suggest that the UK is lagging behind European peers, but it’s not exactly as you choose to describe it)
Light years? Bizarre. The UK is mid table in a comparison of European states. Presumably, by your logic, the UK is ‘light years’ ahead of those below it in the table?
We are in Bedfordshire, fibre Broadband here is 6mb down 0.5 up. Only real option for anything better is Starlink. It’s about time rural areas get upgraded. Our village is 2 miles from the cabinet.
what makes the final percentages worse for some of us is we dont even really have anything pin our hopes on, are we going to be in the circa 1%. Northern lot is finally starting to look like it might happen but until they start to share plans and areas or god forbid streets/roads or actual UPRN information its just a fantasy.
My town is still in the last 15% and we are 3 miles from the nearest town which has FTTP from 3 providers. It would seem inaccurate for BDUK to label us as “hard to reach” given how far we are from existing fibre and the fact we are surrounded by lots of pockets of FTTP.
Openreach have us down for an upgrade but no date or timeframe and enquiries to them and other Gigabit providers have fallen on deaf ears. Our town council wish to engage but are disappointed with the lack of replies
Yet I am still on fake fibre till 2030…. BT taking forever.
Only four more hours then.
Many other suppliers exist.
Man being in that last 15% on my road in Andover is gutting. Think i’ll have to move in order to get decent connection.
Yet still not me pfff it’s stupid how long it’s taking
Still waiting on my apartment complex to be wired up. The freeholder and the managing agency are the main stumbling block.
Well the previous government was useless, and the Project Gigabit contract for Worcestershire (lot 24) never got signed, apparently due to procurement issues. It has been delayed for years, as a result.
In theory, it’s due to be signed this year, but we shall see if the new government can make any progress.
I’d also like to point out how useless Worcestershire country council have been, in encouraging FTTP providers to build their networks in this county, generally favouring ‘roadworks safety’.
Dear ISPs and Government, can we please stop pretending that a maximum upload of 100mpbs or 200mpbs is a gigabit service?
Even an upload of 200M would be nice.
Although Openreach FTTP *in theory* offers 200M uploads, in practice you can’t buy it through any regular retail channel (not even BT). And the price via the handful of specialist business providers who offer it is similar to leased line pricing – around £200 per month.
You might as well say that everywhere that can order a leased line has FTTP available – and that’s almost everywhere, if you can afford it.
Project Gigabit has progressed well, hope to be in the 85%+ next time round, just waiting on the cabinet to be set up by VM. 20 up 1 down is embarrassing
That is almost double what we get. It’s dire really compared to what other people get.
My experience of Fttp through BT has been very poor. Supposed to be getting 900 download but can’t even stream in hd never mind ultra hd in the evenings or weekends. The tech support aren’t helpful either as they will never admit there’s any sort of network fault as at that point you’re going to be eligible for compensation
Some rural towns in west Leicestershire recently had their XGS-PON service enabled by Nexfibre. Up to 2 Gb symmetrical is available. Finally. After a decade of Openreach FTTC.
The only real benefit I’ve seen in having Gigabit for over two years is the download speed for games on the PS5
In every other usage case 500Meg or even 250Meg would be totally fine, when my current deal ends and if it isn’t bettered I’ll be dropping down to 500Meg instead, Gigabit just isn’t warranted in my particular usage case
I’d be interested in usage cases where you absolutely need the Gigabit speeds though
Oh I can give you one. I’m on hyperopic 900 up and down. Need it for work every day as a video editor. Being able to quickly download large (often 1GB+) video files from stock websites and also upload such files really quickly (also to the cloud) is kind of a necessity.
I agree that outside of that and game downloads, having anything beyond 250 is kinda overkill for most any household.
Even 10mb would nice, although even that speed isn’t really enough. No plans here for any upgrade either No mobile signal on any network. It’s pathetic how bad some parts of Bedfordshire are. This county is hardly in the back end of beyond.
Still FTTC here, Openreach “pretend” they have FTTP to the Village, but only connected houses on the main street, presumably they have ticked a box and moved on leaving half the village on FTTC. Box ticking by OPENREACH. Maybe 80% of the population, but rural areas left out. Probably 25% of rural areas.
As of right now, I’m not included in that 85%. VM cable is outside the block of flats, Toob have installed a CBT opposite but there’s no guarantee the housing association will approve the install.
I suspect there are going to be a lot of folk in MDUs left out along with the hard to reach rural premises. Still, we’re better off than we were a decade ago.