Building regulations aim to improve availability of Gigabit capable connections – UPDATED

In theory in the future new build homes should be more likely to have full fibre or another technology capable of delivering Gigabit speeds once changes to the Building Regulations 2010 are in place.

The current situation is that for new homes we identified in 2022 96% had full fibre access as standard and 20% had two different full fibre networks e.g. Openreach and Hyperoptic (figures are from June 2022, more up to date figures will be published in the next day or two). The building regulation changes fall short of specifying full fibre but it is unlikely that Virgin Media would deploy its coax service to a large new estate but for small clusters off an existing cabled street we might see the coax extended.

The Gigabit capable description does not mean new home owners are required to buy an actual Gigabit service (marketed with speeds of 900 Mbps or faster usually) but can opt for whatever speed is affordable for them. The big advantage of fixed connection speed technologies such as FTTP and DOCSIS is that you can easily switch between different speed tiers without all the line length issues of DSL services.

Requirements

Having carefully considered the responses to the technical consultation, the government has decided to take forward the following changes to the Building Regulations 2010. We will introduce legislative requirements for developers to install the following for new dwellings:

1. Gigabit-ready physical infrastructure necessary for gigabit-capable connections (consisting of physical infrastructure including ducts, chambers and termination points) up to a network distribution point, or as close as is reasonably practicable where the developer does not have the right to access land up to the distribution point; and

2. Subject to a £2,000 cost cap per dwelling, a gigabit-capable connection (which may include equipment such as an optical fibre cable or other technological means of facilitating such a connection). Where a developer is unable to secure a gigabit-capable connection within the cost cap, developers must install the next fastest technology connection available, provided this can be done without that connection also exceeding the cost cap.

In the first instance this should be at least a superfast broadband connection and failing that, at least a Universal Service Obligation-standard public electronic communications network connection, as defined in Schedule 1 of the Broadband Universal Service Obligation (a USO-standard connection).

Changes to broadband for new build homes

The changes unfortunately for the public do have a £2,000 per home cost cap, so for areas where its hard to deliver full fibre we will see people getting connected to superfast or maybe even slower services. The question going forward is what oversight will take place to ensure builders don’t just make a claim that cost was too high and not install FTTP due to a high Fibre on Demand quote via BT, when other network operators might have been willing to role out at a lower price.

Persimmon Homes of course (at least those built since the builder created its full fibre business) should all have FTTP by default since they own their own FTTP network Fibre Nest which is used on Persimmon and Charles Church developements. More on their roll-out in the coming week. 

Any effect on the statistics for new build coverage is going to take some years to surface, but we were already expecting to see the FTTP figures to climb to 98% without any legislative changes but help to close the gap to closer to 100% is welcome, even if there are get out clauses.

One warning is that these changes do not apply to conversions, and we have seen office blocks converted to residential flats and while in many cases FTTP is brought on board this is a big loop hole. Why do we say big, well to quote the Executive Summary “The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way many of us live and work and has demonstrated the importance of accessing fast, secure and resilient services through digital infrastructure” and as those holding property portfolios where office buildings are increasingly empty due to home and hybrid working we expect to see more conversions. 

Update 2:30pm Added a clarification to the Persimmon Homes comment, since the roll-out is not revisiting old sites, though we believe where a site is expanding it is possible some retrospective roll-out may take place.

We have also some numbers in how small the gap actually is between what is happening commercially today and the 100% figure.

• New build premises in 2022 98.9% have access to Gigabit technology, 97.8% via full fibre. 62,623 premises found in 2022 so far.
• For the year 2021, 97.2% Gigabit coverage, 96.6% FTTP based on 189,289 premises attributed to Jan 2021 to Dec 2021.

We will do a full summary on new build property figures in the next week or two.

So the new regulations are are going to have a small numerical impact, since for 2022 to date we have some 688 premises without full fibre or Virgin Media DOCSIS 3.1 available to them. Of course while the numbers are small those buying a new home and finding it has sub standard broadband available are going to be very frustrated and while work is in progress to further improve information shown on property search sites there is more for those supporting potential home owners to do starting with the sales staff on site.