Research Round-up March 2024
- Veronica Speiser
- Apr 9, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 10, 2024
FTTP broadband adoption rates and market value in Europe: latest update; Government interventions and commercial investment propelling UK to 85% nationwide gigabit-capable coverage by 2025; Benchmarking take-up at a granular level; Growth in the broadband market is elusive as challenging economic conditions persist; Global fixed broadband subscribers forecast to grow by 15% to 1.6 billion by 2030; UK telecoms sector news; government and Ofcom updates
Key publication of the month:
In summary:
Total Q4 2023 FTTH/P/B, FTTC, cable, FWA/satellite and DSL wholesale and retail connections remained relatively static during the quarter and stood at an estimated 28.866m from 28.833m q-o-q and down from 28.960m y-o-y.
The fixed broadband retail market slowdown resulted in a 0.11% increase q-o-q with ~33k net broadband subscriber additions.
We estimate that BT’s Consumer division (which includes business) saw an overall loss of ~16k subscribers; compared to Q3 this represented around a 0.15% decrease in the retail segment but saw strong growth in its FTTP base adding 220k FTTP connections to reach 2.3m up 46% y-o-y.
Openreach’s FTTP connections increased by 432k q-o-q and reached 4.303m up from 3.871m; it delivered another record FTTP network rollout of 950k premises passed in the quarter at an average rate of around 73k premises per week with a footprint of 12.802m.
Of the four other major ISPs, Vodafone had the strongest quarter with ~39k broadband net additions, followed by Sky with ~29k, while Virgin Media O2’s (VMO2) performance was less than impressive with ~10k additions. TalkTalk continued to have a turbulent year with ~77k net losses.
Independent (or AltNet) providers also struggled with economic headwinds as they have slowed down their FTTP network rollouts to focus on subscriber take-up, but had a strong final quarter with around ~80k additions up from ~41k net adds in the previous quarter. During the quarter, AltNets consumer broadband base reached an overall estimated 1.937m up from 1.858m in Q3 2023.
VMO2’s broadband customer base increased to 5.717m but its overall in-footprint penetration rate decreased to 33.6%
Sky UK to have added around 29k broadband net adds to close the quarter with 5.748m broadband subscribers. Its pay-TV segment is struggling with the knock-on effects of the cost of living crisis and with an estimated net loss of 30k TV subscribers in the quarter.
Retail FTTP trends
Larger proportions of the Local Authorities (LAs) are seeing an increase in multiple FTTP operator coverage – 117 LAs had three overlapping independent fibre providers, compared to 103 in Q3 2023.
Nationwide more than 2m premises could choose between three independent fibre ISPs at the close of Q4 2023. This figure went up by 147K premises, compared to +180K in Q3 2023; 21% of UK premises did not have access to gigabit-capable broadband (either a DOCSIS 3.1 network or an FTTP network).
Retail and business FTTP connections reached an estimated 5.877m at the end of Q4 2023 (see Figure 1 below).
Read the complete article in our free analysis here.
Key March telecoms sector news
BT Group News
1 March – Openreach announced NGA001/24 Extension to Special Offer on Bandwidth Modifies for GEA-FTTC and SOGEA lines upgrading to an 80/20Mb speed.
5 March – Openreach announced GEN024/24 Pricing for new orders in 99 exiting exchange areas. The revised pricing is to support CPs in placing new EAD, EAD Rugged, DFA, OSA and OSEA ('Ethernet') within 99 exiting exchange areas to enduring exchange locations from 3 April 2024 until 31 March 2025. Circuits provisioned between these areas and the enduring exchange will be entitled to the equivalent pricing as they would be if provisioned to the exiting exchange (‘Local Access pricing’).
Its decision to launch revised pricing is intended to help all CPs provision circuits to enduring exchanges, limiting the volume of circuits within the 99 exiting exchanges that would subsequently need to be migrated to enduring exchanges.
7 March – ETH004/24 OSA Mobile: pricing and pilot launch notification. Openreach announced the pricing of its new OSA Mobile product. This is published on the Openreach Price List under section 3.4. This will be a new Optical section within the Ethernet pricing. ACCN OR920 refers.
OSA Mobile is a ‘hub and spoke’ solution for deployments to street furniture. It offers direct interworking with customers’ own equipment at the remote end of the service, i.e. OSA Mobile network facing optics will link to the customer’s owned and managed network facing optics in their kit.
OSA Mobile will initially launch in a restricted capacity under pilot terms and conditions whilst it beds down the new product processes and procedures and complete the development of additional product and operational functionality. It expects the pilot launch to go live from 29 April 2024 and anticipate coming out of pilot phase and moving to full launch in November 2024.
5 March – BT wins £26m contract to connect over 650 primary schools in hard-to-reach places across England with gigabit broadband, as part of the UK Government’s ‘Project Gigabit’ programme.
11 March – Openreach revealed best broadband locations in the South West.
12 March – BT Group and Broadpeak®, who are a leading provider of content delivery network (CDN), video streaming solutions for content providers and pay-TV operators worldwide, announced that they are teaming up on a new solution for live video streaming. The Multicast-Assisted Unicast Delivery (MAUD) solution will enable more reliable, efficient and sustainable live video streaming, with outstanding quality and features Broadpeak’s nanoCDN™ multicast ABR (mABR). A number of major broadcasters and content companies are expected to trial this breakthrough solution in 2024.
14 March – New BT Group hub for 1,000 people opens in Cardiff.
21 March – BT Group partners with Adyen to transform business payments with Tap to Pay on iPhone.
21 March – NGA002/24 Connect the Unconnected Special Offer Extension. Openreach are extending its Connect the Unconnected Special Offer (“CTU”) until 31 March 2025.
CTU supports CPs in connecting end customers not taking fixed broadband due to financial constraints by waiving the connection fee for connections that meet its eligibility criteria. CTU was due to expire on 31/03/2024.
21 March – GEN027/24 ECC and PIA ancillary items price changes. Openreach announced price changes to ECC and PIA ancillary items and Desk Based Survey. These changes include price decreases and price increases.
Price decreases will be effective from 19/04/2024, and price increases will be effective from 20/06/2024. This briefing supports ACCN OR921.
22 March – GEN028/24 Openreach intention to Pilot SOTAP for Analogue product from 1st May 2024. Openreach announced that the SOTAP (Single Order Transitional Access Product) for Analogue shall move into Pilot Phase from 1 May 2024. The move to Pilot Phase is subject to the SOTAP for Analogue Trial meeting Pilot entry criteria ahead of 1 May 2024.
Please note, this guidance refers only to the SOTAP for Analogue product currently in trial and not to any other iterations or variants, including the previously announced “SOTAP” product variant. This briefing supports ACCN OR924.
26 March – Zscaler and BT announced new commercial partnership to strengthen BT’s managed security services.
27 March – BT and Global, the Media & Entertainment Group, announced a 10-year partnership to upgrade the nation’s legacy payphones and roll out more digital hubs for local communities – in a move that will provide better connectivity and hyper-local advertising in more than 200 towns and cities across the UK. Global will also continue to represent BT’s street furniture advertising sales for the next decade.
27 March – NGA2005/24 Extension to Special Offer for FTTP Proactive Same CP Upgrades. This briefing is to inform all CPs about the extension of special offer to support FTTP Proactive (Same CP) Upgrades (“Proactive Upgrades”)
This briefing is to inform CPs about an extension to our special offer to support FTTP Proactive (Same CP) Upgrades (“Proactive Upgrades”).
Openreach announced a temporary extension of its Proactive Upgrades special offer until 30 September 2024 and during the extended offer period will discuss plans with CPs to introduce the Proactive Upgrades product journey and commercial terms to the standard FTTP product scope and pricing.
Openreach has worked with industry to develop a process to facilitate Proactive Upgrades. Openreach will rebate the first appointment amendment and standard cancellation charges for FTTP orders where the orders are part of Proactive Upgrades and meet the criteria set out in Briefing NGA2018/23. The Proactive Upgrades special offer was due to expire on 31/03/2024.
28 March – NGA2007/24 Multiport ONT for FTTP launch. This briefing is to inform CPs about the launch of Multiport ONT for FTTP (including pricing) being launched on 1 May 2024.
28 March – EN036/24 Update to Building Closure List. The Exchange Closure and Consolidation List has been updated and reissued to Version 24 and is available on the Openreach Portal (see below). Version 24 supersedes the previous two briefings GEN089/22 (13 Dec 22) & GEN071/23 (7 Nov 23) .
The Exchange Closures and Consolidation List Version 24 has now been updated to include the ‘phase’ closure date for each of the 105 buildings in the Exchange Exit programme. The ‘phase’ dates for the 105 buildings was set out and published to Industry on 28th March 2024.
Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) News
5 March – New Virgin Media small business customers can take advantage of an all-new Spring Sale offer. Voom Fibre business broadband customers will receive 8 months half price on Voom 800 and Gig1 Solus and Bundle Voom packages on a 24-month contract, or 6 months half price on Voom 400 and 600 Solus and Bundle Voom packages on a 24-month contract.
7 March – VMO2 announced it had passed 14k premises (on behalf of nexfibre) in Alfreton, Derbyshire.
18 March – Virgin Media O2 successfully trials smart poles powered by its fixed network to boost mobile coverage across the UK.
20 March – VMO2 announced it had passed 13k premises (on behalf of nexfibre) in York.
28 March – VMO2 announced it had passed 17k premises (on behalf of nexfibre) in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
CityFibre (CF) News
14 March – CityFibre announced it had agreed to acquire alternative fibre network operator Lit Fibre from Newlight Partners. Integration of Lit Fibre will add up to 300k premises to CityFibre’s Ready For Service footprint, comprising over 200k passed homes and up to 100,000 further premises in planned network rollouts. Lit Fibre’s network is available in 20 towns in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Worcestershire, Essex and Suffolk, and serves a rapidly growing subscriber base of more than 9k retail customers.
28 March – Homes and businesses in the Abbey, Glebe, Minster, Castle, Carholme and Birchwood wards of Lincoln are now able to access faster and more reliable broadband thanks to a new digital network rollout by CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent provider of full fibre infrastructure.
CityFibre started the Lincoln build in 2022, making the city one of a growing number of locations in the UK to benefit from a full fibre upgrade. Following this latest milestone, CityFibre’s next area of focus will be Hartsholme.
Independent Operators (AltNets) News
2 March – Brsk grow UK full fibre broadband cover to 450k premises.
5 March – Ogi announced an expansion of their high street presence to more locations and reported that it had hit the 15k subscribers milestone.
5 March – Zzoomm slows UK full fibre build and warns of job cuts.
6 March – Utility Warehouse, which is also known as Telecom Plus, announced that the company has passed the “one million customer milestone” and is aiming to reach 2 million customers (no date given).
6 March – Netomnia, along with ISP sister company YouFibre, has raised a further £147.5m, increasing its committed debt financing to £377.5m.
15 March – Rural ISP Ecom which is deploying in parts of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, has revealed that they’re in the process of restructuring their business into separate retail and wholesale sides.
16 March – Grain cuts some UK jobs as part of regional refocus.
19 March – First of 86 UK Government-funded 4G mobile mast upgrades go live in Wales.
22 March – Wessex Internet has been awarded the Lot 30 South Wiltshire Project Gigabit contract covering 14,500 hard to reach premises worth £18.8m.
26 March – Ogi announced plans for a new high-capacity digital route into south Wales and announced that it had opened the network for business.
Through a 25-year agreement with the Welsh Government, Ogi has built a network of dark fibre and microducts, creating a new diverse route along the southeast section of the M4 corridor.
27 March – Freedom Fibre announced the completion of their recent merger with InfraBridge-backed VX UK Holdings ltd (VXFIBER). The combined coverage of their open access FTTP broadband ISP network is now 300k premises (up from 285k in Dec 2023).
Other News
11 March – Town of St Helens (Merseyside) start £2.5m project to build full fibre network.
11 March – The Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council in Staffordshire (England) has announced a new project that will seek to build up to 50km of fibre broadband infrastructure to help connect local businesses, public sector and community sites in poorly served parts of the town centre.
12 March – TOTSCo, the company overseeing the One Touch Switching process, announced that after delays to the launch date it will officially be launching the service on 12 September 2024.
If you are a subscriber to UK Plus, sign-in here to access our UK Plus content where you can view our updated Q1 2024 profiles of the UK’s leading internet service providers, as well as our annual overview of the country’s broadband market.
Please get in touch if you would like to find out more about UK Plus or particular publications.
Comments