Project Gigabit updates from DCMS

Covering the Project Gigabit updates from DCMS is always an odd one as they use some of the data we provide publicly on our labs data site, there is an awful lot more ways of dicing and splicing the data that we cover in the news periodically and others such as MSOA and Output Areas from the census that are too numerous to publish. DCMS also makes use of the Ofcom Connected Nations report data, the reason for them using two sets is that the timelines are very different eg. the small Kent town of Edenbridge saw us add some Openreach FTTP that has only gone live in the last week or two and will be in our public coverage data on Saturday 3rd December, our map was updated this morning to show them, but won’t feature in the Ofcom data for 3 to 6 months. thinkbroadband can do the rural and urban splits that DCMS is using the Ofcom data for, but Scotland and Northern Ireland define rural different to England and Wales hence why we don’t quote them, our solution to this is the Ofcom Area 2 and 3 summary now published on the 28th of each month.

So yes the good news story is that 72% of the UK has access to a Gigabit option i.e. full fibre or DOCSIS 3.1. Even with a cold in full flow we’ve been able to see coverage increase from 72.20% on 1st December 2022 to 72.22% on 2nd December 2022.

There is actually a growing number of Virgin Media locations where DOCSIS 3.0 seems to be available compared to 3.1, so if you see the total drop by 0.01 points it is when we’ve found another small pocket where Virgin Media has not finished its upgrade. We mentioned this as people throw the nuances of the Virgin Media footprint out as a reason for the 72% being fake news, but we on that case. 5G in theory under DCMS criteria can count as Gigabit capable and until someone demonstrates it matching the fixed line technologies for throughput and latency matches or is better than VDSL2 we are not including any 5G.

One concern that popped out at us when reading the update was the simplified map to give an idea of the status of the different projects, and the idea that Mapping Complete is actually a valid state. Providers may respond to Open Market Review processes and this can trigger mapping complete but from what we see data wise future plans very rarely turn out to be totally correct and there needs to be a constant review underway to try and identify trends that may lead to changes in Project Gigabit contracts, be that commercial operators arriving in a contracted area with little or no notice, or an operators previously submitted commercial plans being shelved. To date it is the overbuild that is most likely, but if investment does become problematic as the economy contracts in 2023 we may see plans becoming less ambitous.

So far outside of vouchers and LFFN four contracts valued at £128.7 million with aim of delivering to 73,990 premises which works out at an intervention cost of £1,739 of public money per property in the scope of the contracts awarded. This is at the top end of what might have been delivered via FTTP under the old BDUK contracts and reflects the increased costs of doing this six years later and the more spread out nature of the areas being delivered to.

Breaking down the updates into an easy to digest format is not straightfoward, ideally if I could clone myself and was given a topoJSON map for the contract lots I could create an interactive map in a day or two, but for now if you want the full list check out the DCMS update. I’ll just run a quick summary list past everyone for now – mainly so I can get back to finding more FTTP asap.

Live Procurements with estimated dates for contract award:

• Central Cornwall January 2023
• South West Cornwall January 2023
• New Forest eta contract Q2 2023
• Mid West Shropshire Q2 2023
• North Shropshire Q2 2023
• North East England Q2 2023
• Cambridgeshire and adjacent areas February 2023
• Norfolk March 2023
• Suffolk March 2023
• Hampshire Q2 2023
• Worcestershire Q3 2023
• Buckinghamshire Q3 203

The bad news procurement wise:

• Surrey
• Shropshire
• Staffordshire
• Oxfordshire and West Berkshire

Are all flagged as there being no interest from the market to the proposed regional procurements and options to provide coverage will be reviewed at a later date.

In terms of the political 85% Gigabit coverage target that these four areas are looking to be late is probably not a problem, so long as the commercial FTTP market continues at the build pace it is managing. The danger arises from negative feedback in the local area especially when residents see neighbouring counties racing ahead. 

It is possible that increasing the Gigabit voucher values is something DCMS is hoping will allow those desperate for something better than copper to get an upgrade underway and at the ISPA Awards a week ago the chat from various unnamed operators was that they would actually prefer more vouchers rather than the big contracts.