UK broadband update May 2017
General election developments: The Digital Economy Bill received Royal Assent and became law, as part of the wash-up process before parliament was dissolved ahead of the general election on 8th June. See April’s update for further background on this. The UK’s political parties set out their ambitions for broadband and technology in their manifestos; see analysis and commentary from Which?, Cable and industry body techUK, which also published its own manifesto for “the next Government to create a modern and dynamic digital economy that works for everyone.”
Superfast broadband availability: the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) published its latest Broadband Performance Indicator for March 2017: 4,426,493 premises had a superfast broadband service offering speeds above 24Mbit/s made available by the end of March 2017 as a result of Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) supported projects. See Ofcom’s 2016 Connected Nations report for more detail of UK broadband coverage and take-up. Point Topic reported that fibre-based and cable connections have for the first time outnumbered DSL connections across the UK.
New Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) reports: the Broadband Stakeholder Group published two new reports on ways to lower barriers to infrastructure deployment and options for the broadband universal service obligation (USO), now set out in law in the Digital Economy Act. The report on barriers to deployment focuses on aspects such as permits, street works and new deployment techniques; it recommends the establishment of a cross-departmental unit within Government to promote and facilitate broadband network builds. It also calls for Government to work with industry to develop a fully-fledged digital communications infrastructure strategy and recommends that all local authorities create a single point of contact for telecoms operators.
The USO options report explores the effect of different cost thresholds for the delivery of the USO on the level of funding required, where the cost threshold is the maximum cost per premise that a service provider would require to deliver a broadband service. Where costs are higher than this threshold the provider could decline to offer a service or the premise owner could volunteer to pay the difference. The report also suggests that setting the USO at 30Mbit/s rather than 10Mbit/s (more background on this here) would have a negative impact overall. Also see this previous update for details of Ofcom’s final report to Government on the design of the USO.
Mobile not-spots: the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) reported that businesses across the UK are being held back by areas of poor mobile coverage, particularly those in rural areas. More than 70% of firms in a survey of 1,400 reported that they experience mobile ‘non-spots’, areas of no mobile coverage by any operator, or ‘partial not-spots’, where there is some coverage but not from all networks, in their local area. The proportion of companies based in rural areas reporting such issues (91%) was considerably higher than those in inner cities (56%).
Consumer broadband speeds advertising: the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) announced a new consultation on options to strengthen standards around broadband speed claims and address misleading advertising. Current advertising guidance was introduced in April 2012. See this previous update for details of similar recent developments in this area. On a related note Ofcom announced it is working with major broadband providers to improve the quality of coverage information available to consumers.
