November 2020 update on broadband availability across the UK, nations and regions
The Government downgrading its 2025 Gigabit ambition from 100% coverage to 85% coverage has somewhat knocked the wind out of the urgency to build a lot now commercially. Exactly what the effect will be will probably take a year or two to see though due to long timescales involved in the planning and roll-out of FTTP and other Gigabit servic
| thinkbroadband analysis of Superfast, USC, USO and Full Fibre Broadband Coverage across the UK, its nations and regions for premises In descending order of Gigabit coverage - figures 7th December 2020 (change since 7th November 2020) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area | % full and partial fibre based i.e. VDSL2, G.fast or FTTP or Cable | % superfast 30 Mbps or faster | % Ultrafast 100 Mbps or faster FTTP, cable, G.fast | Gigabit | % Full Fibre All Providers Openreach and KCOM FTTP | % Under 2 Mbps download | % Below USO 10 Mbps download |
| Northern Ireland | 99.3% | 89.4% (=) | 67.4% (+1.3) | 67.1% | 58.69% (+1.46) 51.24% (+1.63) |
4.0% | 6.8% (=) |
| 845,717 Premises | 840,179 | 756,395 | 570,228 | 567,455 | 496,315 447,097 |
33,563 | 57,138 |
| London | 98.4% | 97.6% (=) | 78.9% (=) | 62.2% | 20.95% (+0.72) 8.9% (+0.4) |
0.1% | 0.5% (=) |
| 4,720,999 Premises | 4,646,799 | 4,606,266 | 3,726,495 | 2,936,380 | 988,830 420,340 |
4,189 | 21,984 |
| West Midlands | 99% | 97.7% (=) | 73.3% (+0.3) | 47.76% | 16.3% (+0.49) 11.42% (+0.42) |
0.2% | 0.7% (=) |
| 2,947,254 Premises | 2,918,250 | 2,880,630 | 2,160,573 | 1,407,488 | 480,421 336,596 |
5,740 | 21,317 |
| Scotland | 98% | 94.4% (=) | 55.3% (+0.6) | 43.36% | 16.17% (+0.77) 9.43% (+0.52) |
1.2% | 3.1% (=) |
| 2,756,466 Premises | 2,701,886 | 2,602,097 | 1,524,820 | 1,195,129 | 445,718 259,935 |
31,953 | 86,425 |
| United Kingdom | 98.7% | 96.5% (=) | 63.8% (+0.4) | 36.36% | 18.53% (+0.68) 11.61% (+0.48) (includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.5% | 1.4% (=) |
| 30,586,571 Premises | 30,199,785 | 29,520,820 | 19,522,429 | 11,122,110 | 5,668,886 3,551,066 |
152,996 | 431,834 |
| North West | 99% | 97.1% (=) | 60.7% (+0.5) | 36.02% | 16.96% (+0.56) 12.64% (+0.51) |
0.4% | 1.1% (-0.1) |
| 4,135,323 Premises | 4,095,902 | 4,014,842 | 2,508,707 | 1,489,481 | 701,347 522,751 |
17,854 | 47,218 |
| Great Britain | 98.7% | 96.7% (=) | 63.7% (+0.4) | 35.49% | 17.39% (+0.66) 10.44% (+0.45)(includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.4% | 1.3% (=) |
| 29,740,854 Premises | 29,359,606 | 28,764,425 | 18,952,201 | 10,554,655 | 5,172,571 3,103,969 |
119,433 | 374,696 |
| Yorkshire and Humber | 98.8% | 97.1% (=) | 66.6% (+0.3) | 35.26% | 24.5% (+0.60) 16.12% (+0.47)(includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.4% | 1.1% (=) |
| 2,715,928 Premises | 2,683,331 | 2,636,492 | 1,809,212 | 957,687 | 665,293 437,775 |
9,985 | 28,701 |
| England | 98.8% | 97.1% (=) | 65.9% (+0.4) | 35.21% | 17.49% (+0.64) 10.33% (+0.43)(includes KCom Lightstream) |
0.3% | 1% (=) |
| 25,482,135 Premises | 25,184,852 | 24,733,974 | 16,796,205 | 8,972,132 | 4,456,120 2,632,621 |
76,727 | 250,504 |
| South East | 99.3% | 97.6% (=) | 64,4% (+0.8) | 29.52% | 15.79% (+1.22) 6.61% (+0.29) |
0.2% | 0.7% (=) |
| 2,295,901 Premises | 2,279,037 | 2,241,382 | 1,478,679 | 677,717 | 362,532 151,866 |
4,104 | 15,520 |
| Wales | 98% | 95.1% (=) | 42% (+0.5) | 25.79% | 18.02% (+0.73) 14.07% (+0.56) |
0.7% | 2.5% (=) |
| 1,502,253 Premises | 1,472,868 | 1,428,354 | 631,176 | 387,394 | 270,733 211,413 |
10,753 | 37,767 |
| South West | 98.5% | 95.5% (+0.1) | 55.6% (+0.4) | 19.43% | 18.38% (+0.6) 12% (+0.49) |
0.6% | 1.8% (=) |
| 3,747,437 Premises | 3,691,297 | 3,577,957 | 2,084,816 | 728,255 | 688,704 449,714 |
21,179 | 68,052 |
| East of England | 98.9% | 96.6% (+0.1) | 59.1% (+0.4) | 19.22% | 11.79% (+0.67) 6.72% (+0.57) |
0.3% | 1.1% (-0.1) |
| 2,774,286 Premises | 2,744,378 | 2,679,242 | 1,638,229 | 533,169 | 327,038 186,527 |
9,058 | 31,564 |
| East Midlands | 99.4% | 97.8% (=) | 67.5% (+0.3) | 13.94% |
13.94% (+0.46) |
0.2% | 0.7% (=) |
| 1,170,926 Premises | 1,163,406 | 1,144,940 | 790,329 | 163,277 |
163,277 |
2,699 | 8,478 |
| North East | 98.8% | 97.8% (=) | 61.5% (+0.2) | 8.08% | 8.08% (+0.21) 3.95% (+0.2) |
0.2% | 0.8% (=) |
| 974,081 Premises | 962,452 | 952,223 | 599,165 | 78,678 | 78,678 38,524 |
1,919 | 7,670 |
Northern Ireland is still the place to live you want access to a Gigabit connection, or even if you only buy the slower speeds you can future proof your home for broadband by getting a full fibre service connected.
The constant rise in the rate of FTTP being found appears to have slowed down slightly, and this is even before taking a break in data curation between Christmas and New Year. We had been hoping to close out 2020 with just about reaching a 19% FTTP coverage figure but this is looking unlikely unless we have been looking in all the wrong places for more FTTP in the last month. Some of this might be people like CityFibre have been issuing lots of announcements about starting to build but we have not seen any new cities appear with obvious coverage for a couple of months.
For those who tracking the figures rather than percentages you will notice that some regions have seen a bigger jump in the number of premises and this is because we have started our quarterly sweep for new properties and are around a fifth of the way through the list of new and changed postcodes.
