Research Round-up May 2024
- Veronica Speiser
- Jun 3, 2024
- 2 min read
European Broadband Operators and Tariffs Benchmark Report, Q1 2024; Two or more FTTP networks covered 7m UK premises in Q1 2024; UK telecoms sector news; Project Gigabit, government and Ofcom updates
Key publication of the month:
This is our regular update on fixed broadband availability in the UK, tracking the progress between the end of December 2023 and the end of March 2024. The analysis is based on theThinkPoint broadband availability dataset which includes 1.7m postcodes.
Key headlines
At the end of Q1 2024, the overall FTTP coverage was 20.7m premises (64.7% of the UK total). This metric was up by 6.5% compared to Q4 2023.
Nearly 7 million premises had access to 2 or more FTTP networks, and 0.8m were covered by 3+ fibre networks.
In Q1 2024, the largest number of FTTP premises added was in Glasgow (+24.5K), Birmingham (+24K), Buckinghamshire (+20K), and Pembrokeshire (+20K). For the first time, we have local authorities from the South East and Wales in this ranking.
Among the FTTP altnets with at least 100Kpremises, we recorded the highest quarterly growth in premises passed FW Networks (+90%), Grain Connect (+59%) and nexfibre (+54%).
Across the UK, 19% of premises still lacked gigabit access, down from 21% three months earlier.
Despite some operators slowing down their footprint expansion due to cost, labour and contractor issues, 30 local authorities saw 10%+ growth in the percentage of their premises passed with FTTP networks, down from 31 local authorities (LAs) in Q4 2023. This time, high growth areas are spread more evenly throughout the UK, with the three highest percentage increase areas being in Wales.
At the end of Q1 2024, FTTP coverage was lower than 20% of premises in 13 local authorities, down from 14 three months earlier. The FTTP coverage was 50% or higher in 71.4% of local authorities, up from 63% of LAs three months earlier.
Read the complete article here.
Project Gigabit progress update – May 2024
On 21 May, Building Digital UK (BDUK) published its Building Digital UK Framework Agreement. The Framework Agreement sets out the broad governance framework within which BDUK and DSIT operate. It sets out:
BDUK’s core responsibilities
describes the governance and accountability framework that applies between the roles of DSIT and BDUK
sets out how the day-to-day relationship works in practice, including in relation to governance and financial matters
On 23 May, BDUK awarded supplier Freedom Fibre a £43 million contract to provide over 15,000 hard-to-reach premises in Cheshire with access to gigabit-capable broadband. The contract began in May 2024 with the first premises to go live in early 2025.
BDUK launched its National Rolling Open Market Review (May 2024) request for information for all suppliers to submit information about their existing and planned build at premises level over the next 3 year period across the UK. The review will run until 1 July with its findings published later in the year.
Key May telecoms sector news
BT Group News
1 May – BT Group has installed its first EV charge point powered from a street cabinet, marking the first phase of trials which could lead to the wider upgrade of cabinet units across the UK. The charger, which is powered by a BT Group owned cabinet traditionally used to store broadband and phone cabling, forms part of a nationwide pilot by the business’ start-up incubation hub Etc., designed to address the shortfall in public EV charging infrastructure.
2 May – BT provided an update to its Universal Service Obligations (USO) having helped to build a USO connection to over 7,954 premises (up from 7,681 in Oct 2023), with 265 further builds in-progress (up from 185).
16 May – BT Group published its results for the full year to 31 March 2024.
20 May – BT Group has announced a revision to its timetable for moving all customers – consumers and businesses – off the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and onto digital landlines. The move follows the introduction of a series of improvements to the programme to better protect vulnerable customers and those with additional needs, including telecare users. The revised approach will result in a single switch for the majority of customers (businesses and consumers) – from copper to fibre - with all customers now expected to have moved off the old analogue PSTN by the end of January 2027.
28 May – Openreach adds a record 517 UK locations to its latest broadband upgrade plans.
28 May – Openreach announced it is expanding its Scottish national broadband upgrade programme to a further 120k remote premises, 470k premises in the South East of England, 765k premises in London, and 315k premises in the South West of England.
Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) News
7 May – Virgin Media O2 reduced Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 23% last year – equivalent to emissions caused by the annual energy use of almost 15,000 (14,883) UK homes – and is on track to meet its target to cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 60% by 2025.
9 May – Virgin Media announced gigabit broadband is now available to 11k homes in Braintree for the first time.
15 May – Virgin Media O2 has hit another significant milestone in its work to deliver the Shared Rural Network (SRN) after rolling out reliable 4G coverage to 150 rural communities.
22 May – Virgin Media Business Wholesale launched diverse fibre routes and high bandwidth services into the Equinix flagship site, Manchester MA5. The new site is a significant addition to what is considered the UK’s most important network ecosystem and interconnection hub outside of London. This development will enable more fast-growth businesses, especially those based in Manchester and the North, to take advantage of high-capacity infrastructure. Equinix MA5 is the latest in an extensive list of over 160 data centres that Virgin Media Business Wholesale’s national network connects.
23 May – Virgin Media announced gigabit broadband is now available to 24k more homes in Wirral for first time.
CityFibre (CF) News
8 May – City Fibre reported that the sales performance of CityFibre’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) partners has continued to improve with customer connections now exceeding 400k, an increase of 77% year-on-year. CityFibre is now regularly installing over 1,000 new customers a day, deploying more than 330 field service teams with an industry-leading Right First Time (RFT) installation rate currently over 95%.
14 May – CF completed its acquisition of Lit Fibre (Lit) from Newlight Partners. The share-based acquisition, announced two months ago, will accelerate CityFibre’s nationwide full fibre rollout by up to 300,000 premises as part of its 8m rollout programme and will see Newlight Partners join as minority shareholders.
15 May – CF completed the primary-build of its full fibre network in Kettering. The new network is now 'ready for service’ to over 25,000 homes, about 86% of residential properties and most businesses.
29 May – CF announced that it had passed 35k premises in Luton, Bedfordshire.
Independent Operators (AltNets) News
2 May – South Eastern-based AltNet, toob, announced a change in its rollout tactics along with job redundancies as it focuses on take-up and completing the build out to its primary locations by early 2025.
3 May – Wavenet and Daisy Corporate Services join forces to create UK’s largest independent it managed service provider. This latest deal will see the combined business generate a turnover of £500m, employ around 2,000 staff and support over 22k customers. Daisy Chairman Matthew Riley will join the Board as a non-executive director.
14 May – Quickline announced it has connected 380 homes in Esrick, south of York as part of its Project Gigabit contract which it was awarded three months earlier.
14 May – Ogi announced it had passed 100k Welsh premises and reached the 20k subscriber milestone.
15 May – Community Fibre has come together with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to provide free access to 100% full fibre broadband to eligible Londoners struggling to get online.
The new initiative, which launches today in collaboration with Jobcentre Plus, will see those eligible for the service receive 12 months of free full fibre broadband at speeds of 50 Mbps from Community Fibre.
20 May – Investment group Fern Trading (Octopus Investments) has today begun the next phase of customer migrations on their alternative UK full fibre broadband ISP networks, which are shifting to a central retail provider under Cuckoo. Customers of Jurassic Fibre and Swish Fibre have already been through this process, and today it’s the turn of Giganet.
21 May – Alternative network builder and UK ISP Grain (Grain Connect) has today revealed their they’ve now signed up 30kcustomers to their gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) network, which is up from 28k a month ago. On top of that, their coverage has grown from 207k premises passed (Ready for Service) to 220k over the same period.
28 May – Fibrus extended their multi-gigabit capable FTTP broadband network into the coastal town of Millisle in County Down (Northern Ireland), which is home to around 2,300 people. The new service is currently said to be serving 1,268 premises.
29 May – MS3 announced it had extended their coverage to 200k premises (up from 174,261 on 4th Jan 2024).
30 May – Freedom Fibre whose network to covered 300k UK premises (27th Mar 2024) – mostly in the North West of England, has confirmed to local residents in the Cheshire village of Hollins Green and Rixton that they’ve acquired the local full fibre network from CityFibre.
30 May – Octaplus which sells services to consumers via various alternative full fibre broadband networks (e.g. MS3, CityFibre and FullFibre Limited), has today confirmed that they’ve just added Freedom Fibre’s network in the North West of England to that list.
Other News
2 May – Vodafone announced its plan to deploy 5G Standalone technology to rural Wales as part of its proposed merger with Three UK, while adding that the merger “could” also result in 4G being delivered to more than 93% of the Welsh landmass by 2027, which would then lead to an upgrade to 5G by 2034. On 29 May, it also confirmed that it will begin deploying 5G Standalone technology in Northern Ireland and pledged its aim of bringing 4G to more than 85% of Northern Ireland’s geography, by ensuring at least 98% of Northern Ireland’s landmass has access by 2027.
4 May – Ofcom formally served a statutory information request to check up on UK ISPs and progress in the One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), which is responsible for implementing the regulator’s heavily delayed One Touch Switch (OTS) migration system for faster consumer broadband ISP switching.
9 May – The Cardiff Council (Gyngor Caerdydd) in South Wales has once again chosen UK broadband operator Telcom Group (WeFibre, HyperCity etc.) to supply residents and businesses in poorly served parts of the city with “hyperfast gigabit connectivity“, which forms Phase 2 of an earlier Phase 1 roll-out.
10 May – The Government has concluded its national security probe of the proposed mobile mega-merger between Vodafone and Three UK (CK Hutchison) – conducted under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 – and decided to approve the deal, albeit with some relatively minor caveats.
15 May – Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has decided to extend the availability of their Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) to include urban areas. The scheme has, until now, only offered grants to help rural properties get a 1Gbps capable ISP connection installed.
The GBVS currently offers grants worth up to £4,500 to rural homes and businesses to help them get a gigabit-capable broadband service installed.
20 May – The North Wales Economic Ambition Board (NWEAB) has approved the business case for their new 4G+ project, which is more widely investing £8.9m from the North Wales Growth Deal in order to improve the availability of mobile voice and data services, as well as full fibre broadband, to key commercial sites and transport networks.
21 May – Ofcom has today set out its vision for how shared use of the upper 6 GHz spectrum band could enable both Wi-Fi and mobile services, while also continuing to serve the band’s existing users as much as possible.
21 May – The founder of TalkTalk, Sir Charles Dunstone, and fellow shareholders are reportedly preparing to inject around £180m of new equity into the financially troubled UK internet provider. The move would help to tackle the threat of two large debt repayments, which are due over the coming months and said to total up to over £1bn
22 May – Ofcom fined BT £2.8m after it failed to provide more than a million customers with clear and simple contract information before signing up to a new deal.
29 May – The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is responsible for overseeing UK government expenditures to ensure they are effective, has warned that the current build pace of the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network project (i.e. extending 4G mobile (broadband) coverage to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025) “may not be sustainable“.
30 May – A new company called IOEMA Fibre has announced plans to build a new 1,371km long repeatered subsea fibre optic cable between the United Kingdom and several neighbouring countries in Europe, including the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Norway.
31 May – The Scottish Government has issued a contract notice for the North East of Scotland (Lot 5) under the UK’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme, which is expected to expand related connectivity to an estimated 68,342 premises in hard-to-reach (rural) parts of Dundee, Angus, Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City, Moray, Highland and Perth and Kinross.
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