Leaked Labour Manifesto suggests universal superfast broadband by 2022

Leaks whether deliberate or by mistake are part and parcel of policitics and in the scramble caused by a snap General Election things were always going to be messy. A draft copy of the Labour Manifesto has leaked online and a copy of the full document for those who enjoy reading those sort of things is online.

“We will deliver universal superfast broadband availability by 2022. Few things are more crucial to businesses and our economy than a fast and reliable internet connection, but 3 million households and businesses have been left incapacitated by slow internet. We will deliver a universal superfast 30mbps service availability to all households by 2022. The Conservative commitment to just 10mbps will see the 400,000 small businesses and nearly two million homes left with substandard broadband well into the next decade.”

Extract on broadband in leaked Labour Manifesto

We refuse to be drawn into supporting a specific party, but there are some issues to be raised over the draft and as other parties release (or have leaked) information on their broadband policies the same analysis will be applied.

At least the definition of what is superfast broadband is stated at 30 Mbps, but for clarity wording of a minimum connection speed of 30 Mbps should be added to the policy. The wider issue surrounds the figures for business and households, we have 3 million incapacitated and then a different 2.4 million left with sub-standard broadband, it is not clear what speed measure is used to assess either of these or are they the same thing?

If we take the 2 million households and add the 400,000 small businesses, then 2.4 million is in the region of 8.2% to 8.5% of premises in the UK, which tallies with our UK superfast (>=30 Mbps) figure of 92.26% but the manifesto is referring to this 2.4 million premises being ones left behind in the future, and with roll-outs continuing the level of superfast coverage is set to rise, the ambition being 95% by end of 2017 and pushing past that to perhaps 97%. If 97% is reached that would leave 870,000 to 880,000 premises without superfast. It is important to remember that while VDSL2 does suffer from range drop-off it is not superfast and then nothing, hence our varying 2 Mbps, 10 Mbps and coverage figures which as things stand today mean with respect to fixed line broadband 220,000 under 2 Mbps, 925,000 under 10 Mbps and 1,400,000 under 15 Mbps. Of course if the Labour Party is using the Ofcom data released in December 2016 then that actually reflected the superfast coverage levels in April/May 2016 and thus is now 12 months out of date (3 million households is 89% of the 29 million Ofcom states had superfast coverage).

In short the ambition for a universal service obligation with a base line speed of 30 Mbps is great, but there are questions (just as there are with the Conservative policy as it stood prior to election announcement) on the implementation and the date of 2022 might mean that some people are waiting longer for improvements compared to current USO date of 2020.

Raising the number of premises issue is important since if the roll-outs do deliver then potentially the cost to deliver whatever baseline universally obligated speed is set into stone tablets is much lower and therefore you can adjust the technology mixture in what is delivered to offer something much more than a voucher to erect a satellite dish or avoid the problems of usage allowances that plague the 4G solutions – 100GB sounds a lot (£75/m is more than most will pay too) but average montly usage is beyond that, so homes with multiple residents will very quickly eat allowance up if they start to enjoy video consumption.

Of course as the leaked document was a draft, the final manifesto may have clarifications around what dates the various figures refer to and acknowledge that roll-outs are very dynamic thus figures are changing from week to week and chasing targets is actually becoming harder as more new build premises are built.