The issue of the UKs broadband infrastructure was raised again this week with the first speech by the new minister for Culture Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt.
It is widely accepted that the UK lags other nations in terms of speed, capacity and the technology used to deploy broadband. OECD figures show we are currently ranked 33rd in the world in terms of current capability, perhaps more worryingly data from the Fibre To The Home Council Europe shows we are due to be the last nation in Europe to reach FTTH maturity classed as 20% of premises. FTTH is seen by many as the end-game technology allowing uncontended high speeds, the ability to upload at fast rates as well as download and no more ‘up to’ issues where delivery speeds are often a fraction of those advertised.
So was there much to be cheery about following Hunt’s speech? Well it certainly contained ambition. Hunt’s goal is for the UK to have Europe’s best broadband infrastructure by the end of this parliament, or 2015. That certainly is a lofty ambition when compared against progress already made in nations such as Sweden, and new investments in fibre announced in France (Government investment of €2 billion in rural fibre), Germany (Deutsche Telekom announced a €10 billion fibre investment) and Portugal (£800 million line of government credit offered to operators). Hunt’s method of achieving his goal is consistent with the Conservative manifesto - allow the market to drive deployment and support this by opening up BTs ducts to alternative operators in order to foster competition, with a little funding to be drawn from the BBC license fee.
Today BT is making progress towards a faster UK infrastructure with its VDSL roll-out. BT is installing fibre to the cabinet across the UK which will offer speeds in the region of 50 mbps. During BTs recent financial results it said it expects to provide this capability to 66% of the UK – largely the economically viable locations i.e. metropolitan areas. BT is also committed to rolling out some FTTH focusing in new build locations such as Ebbsfleet in Wales. However the total target for FTTH remains small at just 25% of the 66%. Alternative players are beginning to emerge that offer a complete fibre infrastructure, perhaps the most advanced is Fibrecity Holdings (part of the i3 Group), a company that’s laying fibre in various UK cities. Fibrecity has deployed an open access network in Bournemouth and recently confirmed three service providers have begun to offer customers speeds of between 25 mbps and 1Gbit over its FTTH network.
The broadband issue is one that’s taken seriously by the European Commission. We recently saw the NGA (Next-Generation Access) document published which, for the first time, included minimum speed requirements. The ambition of the Commission is for every household in Europe to have at least 30 mbps connections by 2020 and the 50% of those to have over 100 mbps, however the all important upload speed was omitted.
If the UK is to reach its stated ambition of the best broadband network in Europe by 2015 then it is certain that more needs to be done. In fact to reach the European Commission’s targets VDSL / FTTC is probably not enough. Forgetting targets all together the developments in motion are unlikely to offer UK citizens and businesses the ability to enjoy future services such as 3D TV, telemedicine, video conferencing or services people are beginning to use today such as movies on demand, cloud data storage and the BBC iPlayer.
It will be interesting to watch how national governments across Europe rise to the broadband challenge, not least our own.