Connecting Cumbria has claimed on the first anniversary of cabinets starting
to live under the programme that the project has made fibre based broadband
available to some 50,000 homes and businesses.
To date some 200 areas have been FTTC enabled with a new fibre cabinet,
another 100 are in the actual build phase and it is expected that another 200
will be placed towards the 93% target. The target we believe is 93% with access
to superfast broadband, which given the current 58% with the option of a fibre
based broadband service means the next 300 cabinets are very much needed.
We have looked into the 58% figure mentioned in the press coverage and it
looks to be correct as we independently have worked out that 57.9% of
households in Cumbria have access to an Openreach fibre service, of those
households around we believe 95% should be able to get 30 Mbps or faster
speeds. Back in 2013 Ofcom declared a coverage of just 26%.
Of course spending millions of public money is wasted if no-one is buying
the new service and our speed test provides a very good indicator of the
changing broadband fortune for the county.
| Period | Median Download | Median Upload | Download Speed of Top 25% | %’age of Superfast Tests | %’age of Tests below 2 Mbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2013 | 5.1 Mbps | 0.55 Mbps | 9.5 Mbps | 5.2% | 25.7% |
| Q2 2013 | 5.6 Mbps | 0.60 Mbps | 11.4 Mbps | 7.9% | 19% |
| Q3 2013 | 6.4 Mbps | 0.65 Mbps | 15 Mbps | 13.3% | 18.6% |
| Q4 2013 | 6.2 Mbps | 0.67 Mbps | 14.4 Mbps | 13% | 19.2% |
| Q1 2014 | 6.6 Mbps | 0.74 Mbps | 16.6 Mbps | 15.4% | 15.8% |
| Q2 2014 | 7.3 Mbps | 0.82 Mbps | 21.5 Mbps | 18% | 16% |
| Jul/Aug 2014 | 7.9 Mbps | 0.8 Mbps | 19.8 Mbps | 18.9% | 12% |
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I like to see median levels as it’s a good indication of what the “typical” customer sees and isn’t so skewed by “long tails” of high speed. However, if that could be supplemented with an upper quartile (or even decile) figure, it would give a clearer impression of take-up as the median figure won’t move much until market penetration is a great deal higher.
I agree – median is only useful when the 50% point shows a result for the technology the viewer wants to see data for.
Perhaps the best idea of takeup would come from telling us the percentile at which the superfast speed threshold is reached (or two figures, for both thresholds).
Can update after lunch and some other maths for something else
Yes. Much better. Another useful thing is it gives a chance to see if the ThinkBroadband speed tests represent a typical national pattern assuming, that is, there are stats available on the national take-up of “superfast”, whether it’s cable, fibre or FTTC.
(What’s the threshold for “superfast”? I assume it’s either 24 or 30mbps.)
nb. I forgot to say that think the reason the median is moving up (fairly marginally) is that a disproportionate number of those on long lines moving to “superfast” will be those who find their ADSL speeds inadequate. I know a lot of people who are getting decent ADSL speeds and aren’t much interested in migrating given that it will increase costs and there can be practical issues (like having a power socket near your master or having to run Cat5/6 extensions).
Thanks Andrew – that makes for a great addition alongside the median values – Seeing the changes over time is fascinating…
In fact, the reduction in the 2Mbps figures is the most surprising.
The reduction in the sub-2Mbps figure is, over the entire period, exactly the same (12.7%) as the increase in the “superfast” category. Now that may be a coincidence, but I’m going to count it as evidence that those with very slow speeds are much more likely to move to “superfast” when it becomes available. I can’t see any other mechanism by which there’s been such a dramatic drop in sub 2Mbps (more than halved). Adoption of ADSL2 can help, but only a bit. It would surely take something much more dramatic to make such a difference.