February 2019 update on broadband coverage levels across the UK, nations and regions
The amount of VDSL2 we are seeing being deployed is continuing to slow down and many BDUK projects are now deploying full fibre either as infill on the slow fringes of VDSL2 areas or skipping the cabinet based solution totally and jumping from ADSL to FTTP.
The other big change this month is the amount of FTTP we have found that has been deployed by Openreach on 7th January we had 654,357 premises in our records and that has risen now to 751,603 premises. The large increase in full fibre is just shy of 100,000 premises and is our largest monthly change since we have been tracking the figures, half the jump is due to finding lots more urban FTTP in Northern Ireland plus several Fibre First exchange areas seeing their FTTP element go live, therefore whether we will see a similar jump next month depends on whether more Fibre First exchange areas go live in the next few weeks.
For those tracking the ambition to reach 97% to 98% superfast broadband coverage and therefore reducing the amoutn of premises the Universal Service Obligation will need to help, we currently expect to reach 97% superfast coverage between March 2020 and June 2020, the harder to reach 98% figure is not expected until some date between February 2021 to September 2021. These projections will depend on what happens with things like the phase two Superfast Cymru project, Gigaclear BDUK and the Scottish R100 roll-outs, though given the R100 project has yet to sign any contracts any effects from that are at least a year away.
| 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 February 2019 (change since 7th January 2019) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area | % full and partial fibre based i.e. VDSL2, G.fast or FTTP or Cable | % superfast 24 Mbps or faster | % superfast 30 Mbps or faster | % Ultrafast 100 Mbps or faster FTTP, cable, G.fast | % Full Fibre All Providers Openreach and KCOM FTTP | % Under 2 Mbps download | % Below USO 10 Mbps download 1 Mbps upload ADSL2+ does not count as USO compliant |
| North East | 98.4% | 97.5% (=) | 97.3% | 54.6% (+0.1) | 1.31% (+0.07) 0.43% (+0.02) |
0.2% | 1.9% |
| 956,897 Premises | 941,879 | 932,595 | 930,696 | 522,844 | 12,496 4,160 |
1,998 | 18,524 |
| East Midlands | 99% | 97.4% (=) | 97.1% | 61.8% (+0.1) | 3.22% (+0.05) 0.90% (0.05) |
0.3% | 1.7% |
| 1,141,457 Premises | 1,130,082 | 1,112,085 | 1,108,284 | 704,897 | 36,801 10,296 | 3,894 | 19,030 |
| South East | 98.9% | 97.3% (=) | 96.9% | 56.6% (+0.2) | 4.78% (+0.18) 1.87% (+0.03) |
0.3% | 1.7% |
| 2,235,594 Premises | 2,211,910 | 2,175,045 | 2,167,044 | 1,265,637 | 106,923 41,725 |
5,697 | 37,054 |
| London | 97.9% | 97.1% (=) | 97% | 74.1% (+0.2) | 9.14% (+0.14) 2.98% (+0.04) |
0.1% | 2.3% |
| 4,602,769 Premises | 4,507,174 | 4,471,662 | 4,464,256 | 3,410,787 | 420,759 137,087 |
4,506 | 107,426 |
| West Midlands | 98.5% | 97% (+0.1) | 96.8% | 66.8% (+0.1) | 2.80% (+0.12) 1.05% (+0.09) |
0.3% | 2.2% |
| 2,873,314 Premises | 2,829,698 | 2,787,727 | 2,781,541 | 1,918,674 | 80,383 30,062 |
8,133 | 61,950 |
| North West | 98.6% | 96.7% (+0.1) | 96.4% | 52.2% (+0.2) | 3.58% (+0.45) 2.06% (+0.44) |
0.5% | 2.4% |
| 4,024,938 Premises | 3,968,239 | 3,891,244 | 3,879,215 | 2,101,664 | 144,254 82,782 |
21,335 | 95,373 |
| England | 98.2% | 96.3% (=) | 96.0% | 59.1% (+0.2) | 5.81% (+0.19) 2.95% (+0.14)(includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.4% | 2.6% |
| 24,819,184 Premises | 24,367,337 | 23,913,162 | 23,835,902 | 14,661,294 | 1,442,532 731,998 |
98,459 | 649,393 |
| Great Britain | 98.1% | 96% (=) | 95.7% | 56.8% (+0.2) | 5.61% (+0.23) 2.9% (+0.17)(includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.5% | 2.9% |
| 28,934,774 Premises | 28,375,183 | 27,789,787 | 27,696,288 | 16,423,950 | 1,622,681 839,207 |
142,715 | 834,310 |
| United Kingdom | 98.1% | 95.9% (+0.1) | 95.5% | 56.4% (+0.3) | 5.84% (+0.37) 3.13% (+0.33) (includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.6% | 3% |
| 29,742,891 Premises | 29,176,825 | 28,510,102 | 28,410,043 | 16,773,450 | 1,738,422 929,560 |
177,053 | 890,890 |
| Yorkshire and Humber | 97.4% | 95.7% (+0.1) | 95.4% | 58.4% (+0.1) | 10.41% (+0.05) 7.71% (+0.04)(includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.5% | 3.4% |
| 2,649,478 Premises | 2,581,072 | 2,534,796 | 2,527,359 | 1,545,878 | 275,905 204,289 |
12,689 | 90,230 |
| East of England | 98.1% | 95.5% (+0.1) | 95% | 53.4% (+0.1) | 3.08% (+0.16) 1.40% (+0.07) |
0.5% | 3% |
| 2,698,310 Premises | 2,647,471 | 2,575,738 | 2,562,839 | 1,441,353 | 84,011 37,844 |
13,945 | 79,876 |
| Wales | 97.7% | 95% (=) | 94.6% | 36.3% (+0.3) | 6.63% (+0.51) 5.53% (+0.58) |
0.8% | 3.7% |
| 1,425,506 Premises | 1,392,685 | 1,353,659 | 1,347,909 | 517,783 | 94,522 78,787 |
11,119 | 52,075 |
| Scotland | 97.2% | 93.8% (+0.1) | 93.4% | 46/3% (+0.3) | 3.18% (+0.38) 1.06% (+0.24) |
1.2% | 4.9% |
| 2,690,084 Premises | 2,615,161 | 2,522,966 | 2,512,477 | 1,244,873 | 85,627 28,422 |
33,137 | 132,842 |
| South West | 97.6% | 94.4% (+0.1) | 93.9% | 48.1% (+0.1) | 7.75% (+0.26) 5.05% (+0.19) |
0.7% | 3.8% |
| 3,636,427 Premises | 3,549,812 | 3,432,270 | 3,414,668 | 1,749,560 | 282,000 183,753 |
26,262 | 139,930 |
| Northern Ireland | 99.2% | 89.1% (+0.6) | 88.3% | 43.3% (+4.0) | 14.32% (+5.65) 11.18% (+5.88) |
4.2% | 7.3% |
| 808,117 Premises | 801,642 | 720,315 | 713,755 | 349,500 | 115,741 90,353 |
34,338 | 58,697 |
For those tracking the Openreach specific figures, the level of superfast coverage (30 Mbps and faster) from Openreach is at 90.4% (26,883,272 premises) and once you add the sub superfast due to the distance issues with VDSL2 the 'fibre' at any speed rises to 93.3%. So the fact the UK is pushing a 95.5% superfast figure is down to the wide mixture of providers serving the United Kingdom.
On the Openreach ultrafast coverage level, we now have two exchanges (Whitchurch in Cardiff and Corstorphine in Edinburgh) with a widespread overlap between G.fast and FTTP and our count of the overlap is 2,791 premises, therefore when you combine the G.fast and FTTP footprints we get an ultrafast footprint of 2,187,409.
The wildcard in all the projections is what happens with new build premises and our updates to the 2018 data continues and for new postcodes introduced in between Jan 2018 and Oct 2018 we currently see 88.1% with access to superfast (30 Mbps and faster), the success story though is that 60.7% of what we have found for 2018 is using Fibre to the Premises. The reality that new builds are delivering worse superfast coverage than older properties goes a long way to explaining why the superfast and USO figures in some regions is relatively static, i.e. the smaller phase two BDUK roll-outs are sometimes counter balanced by the new homes appearing with just ADSL/ADSL2+ options.
Comments
All down to the other incumbent operator KCOM, have added extra notes to the table.
- andrew
- 7 months ago
Andrew
The FTTP figures quoted don't seem to align. OR FTTP in the text is up to 751,603.
In the Table England is at 731,998, GB at 839,207 and the UK at 929,560.
Which area does the 751,603 relate to, I thought you meant UK as you talk about the increase in NI?
Thanks