6 in 10 new premises in 2018 now have full fibre available to them
The tracking of the state of play for new premises continues and with ONS set to release the Nov, Dec 18 and Jan 19 postcode allocations in the next few weeks it is time to share the figures of what we have found so far. The overall story is best summarised by the following simple chart, which shows that over the last six years the availability of full fibre in new build has increased substantially, but there is a worrying trend for 10 to 12% to only have access to broadband at speeds below 30 Mbps i.e. not superfast.
The changing pattern of superfast and full fibre roll-outs for new build premises from 2012 to 2018 in the United Kingdom.
Beyond the frustration for those who make the mistake of moving to a new property with less than ideal broadband, the reality that the UK is adding around 16,000 to 18,000 premises each year to the number that will need help to reach superfast speeds is watering down the efforts of councils and government. This also has implications for the broadband USO since while a small number who don't get superfast speeds do meet the USO specification, in 2018 alone new homes have added some 12,700 premises to the number who may be seeking USO support once it launches in 2020.
We did consider doing a shorter version of the coverage table, but to give people some idea of the variations that can exist across the UK we have retained the longer version. The 2017 (and 2016 figures when shown) are not static and this is down to several factors, postcodes can be introduced some time before premises that people can move into appear, roll-out of services may not have happened when we first checked a postcode but subsequent quarterly updates spot the change or we see a suprisingly faster than expected speed test and finally on some estates there is retro-fit via residents clubbing together or a developer realising that to sell remaining stock with a good profit margin superfast broadband is expected.
| thinkbroadband analysis of Superfast, USC, USO and Full Fibre Broadband Coverage across the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and English regions for new build premises - figures 4th December 2018 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area | % fibre based VDSL2 or FTTP or Cable | % superfast 30 Mbps or faster | % Ultrafast 100 Mbps or faster FTTP,cable,G.fast | % Full Fibre and Openreach FTTP | % Overlap between Openreach and another FTTP operator | % Under 2 Mbps download | % Below USO 10 Mbps download 1 Mbps upload Includes ADSL2+ |
| UK 2018 124,116 premises |
90.7% | 88.5% | 64.2% | 61.6% 52.6% |
6.7% | 0.6% | 10.3% |
| UK 2017 151,871 premises |
90.2% | 88.8% | 46.9% | 40.8% 30.1% |
5.4% | 0.3% | 10.2% |
| UK 2016 175,350 premises |
89.8% | 88.5% | 40.4% | 31.3% 19.2% |
3.7% | 0.2% | 10.5% |
| East of England 2018 10,814 premises |
92.5% | 90.3% | 64% | 62% 48.9% |
0.18% | 1.1% | 8.8% |
| East of England 2017 12,751 premises |
92.2% | 89.4% | 43.1% | 36.5% 24.4% |
0% | 0.6% | 9.1% |
| East Midlands 2018 3,034 premises |
91.1% | 87.3% | 60.1% | 57.2% 51.9% |
0.8% | 0.8% | 11.2% |
| East Midlands 2017 3,606 premises |
88.5% | 87.4% | 41.9% | 24.1% 18.3% |
0% | 0.1% | 11.6% |
| London 2018 26,084 premises |
91.7% | 90.7% | 77.1% | 73.8% 58.6% |
27.7% | 0.1% | 8.5% |
| London 2017 29,983 premises |
94.2% | 93.9% | 67.9% | 63.1% 43.1% |
22% | 0% | 5.8% |
| North East 2018 4,886 premises |
78.6% | 76.2% | 46.2% | 44.4% 42% |
0.3% | 0.4% | 22.3% |
| North East 2017 5,991 premises |
79% | 77.8% | 28% | 23.4% 16.1% |
0.2% | 0% | 21% |
| North West 2018 12,126 premises |
90.2% | 88% | 53.6% | 52.3% 47% |
0.7% | 0.5% | 10.9% |
| North West 2017 16,978 premises |
92.9% | 91.2% | 36.5% | 28.6% 21.9% |
2.2% | 0.3% | 7.7% |
| Northern Ireland 2018 2,182 premises |
99.5% | 92.8% | 68.6% | 68.5% 68.2% |
0% | 2.1% | 3.6% |
| Northern Ireland 2017 3,123 premises |
99.6% | 93.9% | 50.3% | 45.4% 44.6% |
0% | 2.1% | 2.7% |
| Scotland 2018 9,725 premises |
87.4% | 83% | 65.6% | 61.9% 61.1% |
0.7% | 1.2% | 15.1% |
| Scotland 2017 11,949 premises |
92% | 90.3% | 42.5% | 36.7% 33.6% |
0.8% | 0.4% | 8.4% |
| South East 2018 13,635 premises |
95.7% | 94.7% | 71.1% | 68.8% 51.1% |
3.8% | 0.1% | 4.5% |
| South East 2017 14,579 premises |
92.9% | 91.9% | 52.7% | 45.6% 30.8% |
2.9% | 0.3% | 7.5% |
| South West 2018 14,189 premises |
89.7% | 87.5% | 59.1% | 57.5% 50% |
0.6% | 0.5% | 11.4% |
| South West 2017 19,019 premises |
89.6% | 88.4% | 45.2% | 40.6% 29.4% |
0.3% | 0.4% | 10.9% |
| Wales 2018 4,302 premises |
94.6% | 92.9% | 73.6% | 65.5% 62.3% |
0% | 0.9% | 6.4% |
| Wales 2017 3,379 premises |
90.1% | 88.9% | 44.8% | 40.5% 37.4% |
0% | 0% | 9.9% |
| West Midlands 2018 12,944 premises |
89.9% | 88.1% | 60.2% | 57.6% 52.9% |
0.9% | 1.1% | 11.3% |
| West Midlands 2017 18,466 premises |
84.1% | 82.9% | 40.1% | 33.1% 25.6% |
2% | 0.5% | 16.5% |
| Yorkshire and Humber 2018 10,195 premises |
87.6% | 84% | 51.1% | 48.7% 43.3% |
1.1% | 0.5% | 13.4% |
| Yorkshire and Humber 2017 12,047 premises |
83.4% | 81.5% | 34.2% | 29.5% 23.8% |
2.7% | 0.2% | 16.8% |
For any media outlets interested in the longer term trend i.e. since 2012 in their region or council area please get in touch and we will share the figures for the individual years.
For those wondering why the UK 2018 figures are so much lower than 2017 and 2016, there are two more months of new premises to be added still i.e. November and December which we will be doing once the next data set from ONS appears.
With a number of cities and exchanges set to see widespread roll-outs of full fibre from operators such as Vodafone and Openreach we may may see the full fibre figures for older years such as 2012 start to rise.
Due to our use of the ONS postcode data set and its introduction date the overall number of premises may not match official figures for any particular year, but our tracking is not about the absolute number of premises built but looking at the trend over time with regards to the broadband availability.
We expect the full fibre trend to continue its upward climb and this is due to numerous changes in how infrastructure operators offer FTTP to developers. Whether changes such as lowering costs where they need to paid and offering FTTP by default on smaller estates will make a big difference to the overall superfast figure is difficult to know and for decisions made in 2018 it may not be until 2020 that we see the premises available to move into and thus appear in our data.
It would be interesting to name and shame any developers responsible for significant numbers of new premises not covered by superfast or better broadband. A surcharge on them to contribute towards USO costs would focus minds.