June update on state of broadband coverage across the UK, nations and regions
While we are not really expecting massed street parties to celebrate the increase in coverage of 0.1% in the last month it might excite a few. Compared to the level of change seen each month in 2016 and 2017 it is clear that with both Wales and Scotland still in the procurement stages for their equivalent of the BDUK phase two projects that not too much is going on in the superfast arena.
Where the progress seems to be happening is the Virgin Media Project Lightning roll-out which is moving along at some pace and with a smaller number of VDSL2 cabinets left to spot each month we can now focus more time on spotting where the cable broadband service is now available to order.
The full fibre rhetoric is yet to show a significant rise in delivery volumes, in other words the pace of the last few months continues and the ramp up for Openreach alone that will need them to add around 80,000 to 90,000 premises coverage across the UK each has not been spotted yet. The Vodafone roll-out is also dragging on, but we are expecting them to only release for sale when they have practically completed larger areas, i.e. as a new entrant they will want to make the most of the PR from a large launch.
The Project Lightning roll-out does include FTTP in the form of RFOG, i.e. fibre up to the outside wall of the property with a small powered converter to convert this to the standard DOCSIS coax inside the premises, we have been tracking this and while the tracking of RFOG versus the standard fibre/coax hybrid is not perfect we will during June add it to the FTTP figures and a distinct entry on the stats website.
| thinkbroadband analysis of Superfast, USC, USO and Full Fibre Broadband Coverage across the UK, its nations and regions for premises In descending order of superfast coverage - figures 7th June 2018 (change since 7th May 2018) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area | % fibre based VDSL2 or FTTP or Cable | % superfast 24 Mbps or faster | % superfast 30 Mbps or faster | % Ultrafast 100 Mbps or faster | % Full Fibre and Openreach FTTP | % Under 2 Mbps download |
% Below USO 10 Mbps download 1 Mbps upload |
| North East | 98.2% | 97.2% (=) | 97.0% | 53.3% (+0.2) |
0.63% (0.05) 0.22% (0.02) |
0.2% | 2.1% |
| 934,052 Premises | 917,510 | 907,871 | 906,063 | 497,502 |
5,888 2,091 |
2,017 | 20,039 |
| East Midlands | 98.8% | 97.1% (+0.1) | 96.8% | 58.9% (+0.1) |
1.26% (0.06) 0.45% (0.05) |
0.4% | 2.0% |
| 1,116,708 Premises | 1,103,262 | 1,083,854 | 1,080,632 | 658,314 |
14,048 5,076 |
4,624 | 22,085 |
| London | 97.8% | 97% (=) | 96.9% | 72.0% (+0.2) |
7.07% (+0.16) 2.63% (+0.03) |
0.1% | 2.5% |
| 4,504,530 Premises | 4,406,204 | 4,370,809 | 4,364,211 | 3,244,433 |
318,634 118,252 |
5,366 | 111,192 |
| South East | 98.6% | 96.9% (=) | 96.6% | 52.7% (=) |
3.01% (+0.02) 1.54% (+0.02) |
0.3% | 2.0% |
| 2,184,910 Premises | 2,154,595 | 2,118,071 | 2,111,349 | 1,152,157 |
65,763 33,598 |
6,094 | 44,502 |
| West Midlands | 98.1% | 96.4% (=) | 96.2% | 64.8% (+0.1) |
1.49% (+0.05) 0.66% (+0.03) |
0.3% | 2.7% |
| 2,816,224 Premises | 2,761,975 | 2,716,195 | 2,709,636 | 1,824,077 |
41,989 18,724 |
8,992 | 74,659 |
| North West | 98.3% | 96.2% (=) | 95.9% | 49.4% (+0.1) |
2.29% (+0.05) 1.37% (+0.03) |
0.6% | 2.8% |
| 3,946,074 Premises | 3,878,203 | 3,796,415 | 3,785,061 | 1,947,280 |
90,225 53,867 |
23,676 | 110,661 |
| England | 97.7% | 95.7% (=) | 95.4% | 56.6% (+0.2) |
4.07% (+0.07) 2.35% (+0.03) |
0.5% | 3.2% |
| 24,292,189 Premises | 23,738,669 | 23,249,401 | 23,176,750 | 13,743,679 |
988,926 570,527 |
110,651 | 768,316 |
| Great Britain | 97.6% | 95.5% (0.1) | 95.2% | 54.3% (+0.2) |
3.82% (+0.06) 2.29% (+0.04) |
0.5% | 3.4% |
| 28,326,000 Premises | 27,656,878 | 27,042,392 | 26,955,071 | 15,368,112 |
1,082,820 647,553 |
153,839 | 966,982 |
| United Kingdom | 97.7% | 95.3% (+0.1) | 94.9% | 53.7% (+0.2) |
3.76% (+0.07) 2.27% (+0.04) |
0.7% | 3.5% |
| 29,103,513 Premises | 28,425,952 | 27,722,632 | 27,628,379 | 15,621,805 |
1,094,825 659,558 |
191,085 | 1,030,661 |
|
Rest Of Scotland |
97.3% | 94.7% (=) | 94.5% | 47.9% (+0.2) |
1.10% (+0.06) 0.57% (+0.05) |
0.9% | 4.3% |
| 2,405,012 Premises | 2,339,261 | 2,278,479 | 2,272,495 | 1,152,935 |
26,408 13,747 |
22,194 | 104,116 |
| Wales | 97.4% | 94.6% (=) | 94.2% | 33.3% (+0.1) |
4.78% (+0.06) 4.49% (+0.04) |
0.8% | 3.9% |
| 1,395,710 Premises | 1,359,789 | 1,320,697 | 1,314,943 | 465,200 |
66,769 62,737 |
11,143 | 55,054 |
| East of England | 97.2% | 94.5% (+0.1) | 94.1% | 51.7% (=) |
1.68% (+0.04) 0.93% (+0.02) |
0.7% | 4.1% |
| 2,644,321 Premises | 2,570,077 | 2,498,373 | 2,487,387 | 1,367,797 |
44,463 24,707 |
17,337 | 107,944 |
| Yorkshire and Humber | 96.3% | 94.4% (+0.1) | 94.2% | 55.0% (+0.2) |
7.53% (+0.03) 6.54% (+0.03)(includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.5% | 4.6% |
| 2,592,705 Premises | 2,496,192 | 2,448,524 | 2,441,974 | 1,424,658 |
195,272 169,642 |
14,114 | 120,093 |
| Scotland | 97.0% | 93.7% (=) | 93.4% | 43.9% (+0.2) |
1.03% (+0.06) 0.54% (+0.04) |
1.2% | 5.4% |
| 2,638,101 Premises | 2,558,420 | 2,472,294 | 2,463,378 | 1,159,233 |
27,125 14,289 |
32,045 | 143,612 |
| South West | 97.1% | 93.2% (+0.1) | 92.6% | 45.8% (+0.2) |
5.99% (+0.08) 4.07% (+0.04) |
0.8% | 4.4% |
| 3,552,665 Premises | 3,450,650 | 3,309,289 | 3,290,437 | 1,627,461 |
212,644 144,570 |
28,431 | 157,141 |
| Northern Ireland | 98.9% | 87.5% (+0.2) | 86.6% | 32.6% (+0.5) |
1.54% (+0.09) 1.54% (+0.09) |
4.8% | 8.5% |
| 777,513 Premises | 769,074 | 680,240 | 673,308 | 253,693 |
12,005 12,005 |
37,246 | 66,109 |
| Highlands and Islands (HIE) | 90.5% | 79.8% (+0.1) | 78.5% | 0.3% (=) |
0.35% (0.02) 0.35% (0.02) |
4.2% | 16.0% |
| 242,073 Premises | 218,911 | 193,112 | 190,128 | 846 |
846 846 |
10,196 | 38,801 |
The cable, g.fast and FTTP services combine to form the ultrafast coverage column, for the UK the cable coverage is standing at 50.53% today and one of the stand out areas for an increase in the last month was the Christchurch District Council area with an extra 2,100 cable premises added. On g.fast we know of 176,462 premises covered by the two Openreach G.fast services, but with a declared coverage in their financials of 1 million premises there is clearly a lot more pods to find and confirm they are open to orders, to complete the ultrafast picture at Openreach there is also 509,171 premises of GEA-FTTP in our system.
We looked at a projected date for hitting 98% superfast coverage across the UK back in May which after the hard 95% target is a soft political target, but reaching it has important implications for the broadband universal service obligation and as the pace of superfast roll-outs is continuing at the same slow post 95% pace our projection has shifted to a September 2019 to August 2020. In short hitting 98% before the start of 2020 is starting to look less likely, the success largely hinges on what happens in Wales and Scotland with the next set of gap funded contracts, the phase three projects and extra coverage from the savings and gainshare dividend in the other BDUK project areas will contribute but their scale is much smaller since (a) gap funding levels are higher in the more rural areas (b) the funding available is limited.
In short in our race to march up the full fibre league tables we appear to be taking our eye off the ball with regards to basic superfast coverage.
