UK broadband update September 2017

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced six pilot projects to test innovative ways to connect offices, schools and other public sector buildings to full fibre broadband services. The projects are located in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, West Sussex, Coventry and Warwickshire, Bristol and Bath & North East Somerset, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester; they will receive around £10 million as the first stage of a £200 million scheme to extend the reach of fibre networks (for more background see the launch of the Government’s Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund, the March 2017 Budget and the 2016 Autumn Statement).

The announcement was accompanied by a report on the impact and benefits of the previous Broadband Connection Voucher Scheme for businesses and a summary of responses to the Government’s December 2016 call for evidence on ways to extend local full fibre networks. Responses recognised the potential for voucher schemes and public sector connectivity to underpin further investment in fibre:

“The benefits of using public sector connectivity requirements to bring full fibre networks to an area were noted by a number of respondents, including facilitating investment and reducing the risk for infrastructure providers. A voucher scheme to draw providers further into these areas and encourage businesses to invest in new technology was mainly well-received too and the two schemes were seen to complement one another. Areas which have an existing fibre spine are considered most suitable for a voucher scheme and public sector requirements could provide this initial core network.”

Further DCMS announcements this month:

• Up to £645 million is to become available to extend the reach of superfast services as a result of the clawback provisions contained in the current contracts with BT; see this previous post for details of a similar announcement from July 2015.
• A new £30m National Innovation Centre for Data (NICD) is to be established with a £15m Government investment being matched by £15m from Newcastle University. The centre is intended to link up leading academic talent in universities with industry and the public sector to help develop the skills needed to solve real world problems using advances in data science.
• Minister for Digital Matt Hancock delivered a keynote address to the UK Internet Governance Forum.

Other news this month:

• The Welsh Assembly Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee published a new report calling on the Welsh Government to consider innovative ways to connect the last four percent of Wales without broadband access, and to consider reforming the planning regime to improve mobile phone coverage across the country.
• The Scottish Government published its 2017-18 Work Programme, including commitments to launch the first phase of procurement for‘Reaching 100%’ (R100), its programme of investment to deliver 100% access to superfast broadband of 30Mbit/s to all homes and businesses by 2021. The Scottish Government will also deliver free Wi-Fi throughout major town and city centres across Scotland and match the UK Government’s rates relief on certain new fibre investment (see pages 42-44).
• Reuters reported that Vodafone is considering investing in full fibre broadband connections if it can find partners to share costs; see this previous post for further background on this (in relation to Vodafone’s discussions with Openreach) and also this related Vodafone press release.
• A new report from the Carnegie Trust suggested that cheaper, better quality broadband could be a “digital dividend” of the Brexit process, if the UK Government takes a more ambitious approach to the digital sector.
• The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called for a major increase in infrastructure spending across the UK in the aftermath of Brexit, including on broadband and 5G infrastructure.
• The European Commission published a new study on broadband coverage in Europe, monitoring progress towards broadband targets. The proportion of UK homes passed by next generation access (NGA) networks increased by 1.8 percentage points to reach 92.3%, substantially higher than the EU average (75.9%). Growth of NGA technologies in rural areas was more dramatic, where coverage increased by 30.8 percentage points, covering 78.2% of rural households at the end of June 2016. Also see commentaries from ISP Review and uSwitch.
• Which? published results from its latest broadband survey which found that BT, Sky and TalkTalk performed particularly poorly for customer score (more on consumer broadband here).