Gov to Evaluate UK Project Gigabit, Mobile and Full Fibre Broadband Programmes
In a small but interesting update, the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has announced a string of new studies to evaluate the performance, delivery and value of its various mobile and broadband roll-out programmes – including Project Gigabit, Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN), Shared Rural Network (SRN) and GigaHubs (extension of LFFN).
According to the first brief, BDUK has commissioned Winning Moves, Belmana and Darren Kilburn to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of waves 2 and 3 of the £200m Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme (wave 1 was already evaluated), which helped to extend fibre optic networks to public sector sites. The same network could also be harnessed to help improve local business and home broadband connectivity, albeit requiring separate private investment. The follow-on GigaHubs scheme, under Project Gigabit, will also be separately evaluated by Belmana, Hatch and GC Insights (here).
The second brief reveals that BDUK has commissioned Ipsos UK and partners to undertake an evaluation of the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) Programme, which has helped to extend geographic 4G mobile coverage from ‘at least one operator’ to 95% of the UK and will continue to expand until the start of 2027. This project involved both the construction of new masts and the sharing of existing ones between the operators.
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The third brief confirms that BDUK has commissioned Ipsos UK and partners to undertake an evaluation of their headline £5bn Project Gigabit scheme, which includes the Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) interventions and the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS). The overall goal of this has been to help extend gigabit broadband to c.99% of premises by 2032 (recently delayed from the original target of 2030).
Such evaluations are typically conducted periodically, usually once a programme has been up and running for a while (i.e. so there’s actually something to evaluate in the first place). The prior Superfast Broadband (SFBB) programme saw several evaluations and so did related schemes (examples here, here and here), so this is really just a continuation of that approach (BDUK page for past evaluations).
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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IIRC, the GBP 1.0 bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) Programme was cut down to GBP 500mn in one of this year’s budget reviews.
Maybe the government should just ask the public who has full fibre. In stead of wasting money. 12 years in a city and I’m still waiting for fibre
To be fair, most ordinary residents don’t even understand the difference between ADSL and FTTP, let alone that between FTTC and FTTP.
You should move to a rural area – we have been waiting for upgrade to our exchange’s mix of ADSL and FTTC for longer than that. Some residents are still having to rely on dial-up technology because they are too far from the exchange.
Looking at the documents, the concern is, at least in part, about getting value for money and whether the schemes are achieving the desired outcomes. The emphasis is not about expansion or completeness of the coverage.
I have been working on the fibre roll out since the start of the project. My last count on companies physically installing was over 100.
Which city doesn’t have fibre yet?
> Which city doesn’t have fibre yet?
Large parts of Winchester. A few areas have APFN/Cuckoo/Swish but they are no longer accepting orders. Openreach now slowly rolling out but some properties (like mine) will probably miss out. Again.
And to add to the misery, we have some of the worst cellular coverages in the country. Again, certain pockets are fine but the vast majority don’t even get adequate 4G. I’m talking kilobits per second speeds.
Project Gigabit has to be one of the most shambolic programmes ever. They need to rip the whole thing up and start over with a more sensible approach that prioritises coverage above everything else.
– Ban overbuilds (until 100% coverage is achieved)
– Make it illegal to skip certain properties or streets – implement an easy system for all installers to request “top-up” funds from Project Gigabit to cover more expensive properties/streets
– Prioritise delivery of a single wholesale network (at least 10G capable, symmetric) to each property – nothing more, nothing less
– Define a sensible “base” service quality level for each cellular network operator – fines for not achieving that, automatic waiving of bills if they cannot provide that service
– To help with the above, streamline and fast-track planning permissions for masts and so on – with regulation forcing local govt authorities to cooperate with the effort
This current postcode lottery system of rollout needs to come to an end. But it won’t, and we will be talking about this long into the 2030s where millions of households will STILL be struggling for basic connectivity.
It truly is shameful how bad the situation is in this country.
@Sonic
I do agree with your approach but Winchester does have Virgin Media too (old VideoTron then NTL) into the mix. Can remember the old days having a videotron phone line and using the TCP and Cintranet ISPs in Southampton for free evening calls, but limited to 20 hours per week!
Aren’t GigaNET proposing the Fibre up the city?
@Sonic: The London and South East regions were deprioritised so that the roll-out could be accelerated in the other regions, but if you look at the numbers, full-fibre roll-out in London is now (sing the start of the second quarter, I think) spreading at a respectable rate again.
@Barney: Yes, but according to Think Broadband data, they only cover less than 40% of the premises in Winchester. And it’s coaxial (DOCSIS) only, not full fibre. And of course, it’s not a wholesale network and VM don’t have the best track record. They supply to some properties on our street but some 13 houses are excluded (including mine).
@Far2329Light: Why would some areas be deprioritised to benefit others? What was the logic behind that? I don’t remember reading about that – was it covered on ISPReview?
Thanks!
@Sonic:
It was not logic, it was government policy.
@Far2329Light: How strange.
@Barney: Giganet (now APFN/Cuckoo/Swish/??) started their rollout with great fanfare but the project stalled. They have some presence but it doesn’t look like they are taking new orders from enabled premises (I have tried a few random postcodes where I can see their toby boxes).
How on earth do you make it “illegal to skip a street”? Unless you build out to every single street in the country simultaneously, every build ends somewhere and the next street is ‘skipped’. Any kind of mandate will just result in investors sitting on their hands or diverting their funds to something else.
Bizarre.
84.08khz: Not sure what you mean. I’m talking about certain properties and streets getting excluded from the rollout of FTTP networks. Reason they do that is almost always about cost. Make additional funds available from a central pot – but prohibit them from skipping any properties. Is that too unreasonable? Why?
It’s a fairly obvious point. If a build stops in the street next to yours, you will perceive your street as having been skipped. If the build is then extended to cover your street, people living in the next street believe they have been skipped.
Your condition to not skip any streets is this only achievable by building to every single street in the country simultaneously.
I’d like them to explain the logic behind their broadband voucher scheme, which seems completely nonsensical. Once a Project Gigabit build contract is awarded in a county, every property in that county becomes ineligible for the vouchers. So the whole purpose of vouchers is to support harder to reach premises (i.e. precisely the kind of properties that are unlikely to be included in large scale build plans) and yet, if you’re not covered by the Project Gigabit build, you’re also barred from accessing vouchers. How is that supposed to make sense?