We have launched a State of Broadband Report which covers UK broadband services, key statistics and latest trends. The data is based mainly on the live Local Broadband Statistics site we publish on labs.thinkbroadband.com/local alongside some analysis and graphics.
The latest report for March 2023 is available:
The State of Broadband Report – March 2023
The report includes various sections:
- State of the Nations — Comparisons across the four nations and English Regional breakdown for Superfast, Gigabit and Full Fibre coverage
- Local Authorities – Winners & Losers — Top 20 and Bottom 10 local authorities for full fibre rollout including top 5 councils for increase in FTTP build rates.
- Progress towards government targets — UK-wide and national breakdown of progress towards 85% Gigabit, 85% FTTP and 100% FTTP targets.
- Evolution of Technologies — Breakdown of how broadband technologies have changes since 2011 from ADSL through to FTTC, G.FAST and FTTP and the role of cable.
- UK New Build & Fibre Coverage — Showing the progress of Gigabit and Full Fibre services in new builds for the past decade.
- Largest Full-Fibre Networks — Competition within alt-nets is increasing; we recap the largest altnets showing how significant CityFibre, Virgin Media RFOG, Hyperoptic and Community Fibre are compared to the rest.
- Relative Market Share — We review the year-on-year marker shares of the top 5+ providers.
- Average Consumer Fibre Prices — Benchmarch for pricing for services at various speeds; includes review of price increases due our in a few weeks.
- Rural vs Urban — Overview of the overage for each speed category by Area 2 and Area 3.
- Broadband Speed Requirements — Exactly how fast a broadband service do you need? We’ll recap the guidance for various services from YouTube, Netflix, Zoom to online gaming.
The next update is expected around July 2023.
Some key snapshots from the report:
Test your broadband speed
Follow us on X for the latest broadband news 
Congratulations, it’s very nicely designed and shows the information very clearly.
I’m interested in your 100% FTTP coverage predictions. I see that you predict “100%” coverage in 2026, is this due to rate of build or because Openreach give 2026 as their end date for their build?
Also even once that build project is complete not everyone will be covered. Is “100%” a shorthand because it would be too wordy to add “oh, by the way, there will be edge cases where OR deem it too costly to build, but it’s less than 1% of premises.”?
Superbly clear, beautifully presented – a really useful resource. If I might suggest a couple of things that would extend the concept, and that is either actual FTTP take up by area (ideally contracted speeds, but suspect that isn’t readily available), and on the ISP section, perhaps a summary of complaints data (actual customer satisfaction would be better, but again, probably isn’t available). If doing complaints Ofcom data is a potential resource, but would need to consider whether the Ofcom approach of ignoring smaller ISPs is fair. But more work, data might not be good quality.
On 100% FTTP predictions its looking at the previous rate over a number of months. So with Openreach building the most this will mean they are the biggest input, but all FTTP networks we track are taken into account.
Report will have some caveats so 100% is likely to be 99.something but that is another set of issues for another time
An excellent report. Great visuals!
Also on the 100% FTTP – we expect it will slow down closer to the line as we get to the harder and harder to reach locations. We do warn about this but it’s about seeing where the current trend is pointing to assuming same speed.
Great report let down by wholly unrealistic target projections.
BDUK have to my knowledge no connected premises as part of their awarded Project Gigabit programme. Most Type A and B contracts wont complete build until 2026 and Type C contracts have yet to commence procurements. These additionally do not account for VHTR (final %).
A more realistic target needs to be clarified to not overset expectations in the public domain.
Unhelpful headlines for those that have been waiting for superfast for one decade already!!
In terms of unrealistic, what the projections show is that if the pace can be continued its possible. In short if there is drop off between commercial roll-outs and tax money funded roll-outs then its possible.
We have individual council area projections to share at some point. Focus is on 50% target for now.
Great work.
I think it would be more interesting to show BT EE and Plusnet separately. Retail customers have to choose one of them.
What constitutes FTTP availability as I more often than not see exchanges as ‘FTTP on demand’ – This is not a fibre priority area. FTTP not available.
Albeit ‘available’ the prices to get these services to premises are untenable for home workers and for the majority of small/SME businesses in the UK
@DavidWardell: FTTP availability means it’s flagged as available in our internal database for the postcode; we would generally based this on the majority of the postcode can get it. There are some cases where the postcode is ‘split’ (some can some cannot) which we do track but we don’t split them up for statistics. Whilst we have some premises level data in some cases we don’t for every provider (some help us some don’t). We don’t flag it based on an exchange or anything like that. At statistical level this should be accurate.
100% won’t be including Cuckoo Oak Full Fibre! Openreach will declined it.
What is the date that is reflected in the premises passed data on the Largest Full- Fibre Networks visual, please?
I believe, adslmax, that the boss of Exascale has already informed you that your area is on his plans.
He is connecting customers right now and his build is ongoing from outside in.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasbibb?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_miniProfile%3AACoAAArH530B0TdME9m4Rp3pWrKsrHFiTTsxKqs&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BdPYYnNTpRHy44AIgl107Ew%3D%3D