Research Round-up November 2023
- Veronica Speiser
- Dec 18, 2023
- 3 min read
Broadband Coverage in Europe; Gigabit access available to 77% of UK in Q3 2023; UK Forecasts Update; BDUK Project Gigabit updates; UK telecoms sector updates; ISP news; government and Ofcom updates
Point Topic’s key publication of the month:
Gigabit access available to 77% of UK in Q3 2023
Key headlines:
At the end of Q3 2023, the overall FTTP coverage was just over 17.4m premises (54.5%), up from 16.3m in Q2 2023.
The FTTP coverage was 50% or higher in 54% of local authorities (LAs), up from 46% of LAs three months earlier.
24 local authorities saw 10%+ growth in the percentage of their premises passed with FTTP networks, up from 15 in Q2 2023.
Almost 1.9m premises could choose between three independent fibre ISPs (including resellers). This figure went up by +180K premises in Q3 2023.
Across the UK, 23% of premises still lacked gigabit access, down from 25% three months earlier.
Openreach and FTTP in general
In three months to the end of Q3 2023, there was a slight slowdown in the Openreach full fibre rollout, compared to the previous quarter. We found 724K additional FTTP premises (down from 850K added in June 2023), which resulted in our total recorded Openreach FTTP footprint of 11 million premises. This is 34.5% of all UK premises, up from 32.2% three months earlier. The decline in the number of Openreach ADSL, FTTC and Gfast only premises has continued – their number went down by 721K compared to 706K in Q2 2023.
Looking at the proportion of total premises passed by Openreach FTTP, urban centres, towns, and regions outside London and the South East dominate, with Northern Ireland enjoying particularly extensive FTTP coverage. Belfast remains the leading local authority in terms of the availability of Openreach fibre, with 94.8% of its premises passed, an increase from 94.6% in Q2 2023.
Among all the LAs, in Q3 2023 the largest number of FTTP premises added was in Manchester (+27K), Glasgow (+24K) and Shropshire (+23K).
Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is accelerating full fibre network rollout mainly via their nexfibre venture using XGS-PON technology. According to the new CEO, nexfibre passed 500,000 premises by the end of September 2023, with all of them being ready for service. This figure does not include 175,000 premises passed to be acquired by nexfibre from Virgin Media O2 as part of the Upp transaction.
Altnets and other independent fibre providers
The altnets are pushing ahead with their fibre rollouts. As an increasing number of altnets are exceeding 100K fibre premises passed, we are now focusing on this cohort. At the end of Q3 2023, our figures showed CityFibre at the top of the league with 2.6m FTTP premises covered by their network.[1] Vodafone, Zen and TalkTalk remained the largest retail providers using CityFibre network.
In Q3 2023, 103 local authorities had three overlapping independent fibre providers, compared to 96 in Q2 2023 (Table 3). Coventry and Peterborough have maintained their lead by the percentage of premises served by three providers, with 78.6% and 76.3% respectively. Aberdeen City has overtaken Milton Keynes in the third position with 74.1%. Among the LAs served by three fibre providers, Glasgow, Leeds and Leicester saw the largest number of additional premises served in Q3 2023, at +26K, +18K and +15K respectively.
Read the complete article in our free analysis here. The complete dataset used to produce this analysis is part of our ThinkPoint service which involves UK Broadband Mapping at postcode level. For more information check our UK Mapping page.
Building Digital UK (BDUK) Project Gigabit Updates
Building Digital UK (BDUK) has carried out significant market engagements in various regions to identify potential areas for government intervention to roll out gigabit-capable broadband. After market engagements and procurement processes the following Project Gigabit contracts have been awarded to Gigaclear and Connect Fibre throughout November 2023 (Table 4).
To date, all 15 Project Gigabit intervention area live procurements have been awarded to AltNet suppliers. The contracts awarded are worth over £635m aim to cover around 400k premises.
Other key telecoms sector news items from the month can be found below.
Telecoms Sector News
BT Group News
2 November – BT Group published half year operational and financial results to end September 2023.
2 November – Openreach announced the launch of SOTAP (Single Order Transitional Access Product) - which will deliver a copper path between network terminating equipment (NTE) at your customers’ premises and a main distribution or jumper frame at the exchange.
Communication providers can use SOTAP to provide broadband and internet protocol (IP) phone services, because it connects to your exchange infrastructure. SOTAP is available to help Openreach withdraw Wholesale Line Rental (WLR). It will only be for areas where there aren’t any fibre products available. And it won’t include a managed phone service, or any associated calling and network features.
7 November – Openreach released GEN071/23 - Update on Exchange Exit 2030 consultation and status update on the five Exchange Exit pilot exchanges.
24 November – Openreach announced it had passed around 40k premises in Scotland as part of the Scottish Government’s £600m Reaching 100% programme.
30 November – BT Group’s Digital Unit today announced it is working with Blue Planet, a division of Ciena to simplify the way it automates the orchestration and delivery of network services as part of customer orders and service requests, across the Group’s Consumer and Business products. The move improves customer experience with services going live quicker, reduces engineering effort and helps speed new propositions to market.
30 November – Openreach published GEN076/23 which outlined changes in support of One Touch Switch go-live. The One Touch Switching Company announced a go-live date for One Touch Switch (OTS) of 14 March 2024. In summary, Openreach will be:
Removing Cancel Other on migration orders;
Removing the 10 working day Minimum Lead Time (MLT) for migrations (to be replaced with new MLTs);
Removing the 7 day rental liability charge for WLR standalone ceases; once this is removed, rental will be charged up to the termination date of the product.
Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) News
2 November – VMO2 announced the launch of Apple TV+ on to its new and existing Stream customers who take a Virgin Media broadband only or broadband and landline bundle can enjoy complete flexibility with a 30-day rolling contract and no ongoing cost beyond their subscriptions.
8 November – Virgin Media O2 experienced the largest spike ever on its broadband network driven by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. Its broadband network hit 25.1Tbps at peak, a 1.4% increase on the previous record set in February this year.
20 November – VMO2 announced it is trialling an enhanced Smart Security offering, which will provide thousands of its Hub 5 customers with an extra layer of protection for all of their smart home devices at no extra cost. The Smart Security system will allow users to monitor and manage their internet security in real-time, alerting customers of unusual cyber behaviour.
24 November – Sky Ireland and Virgin Media Ireland recently signed a significant wholesale network access agreement, which will enable Sky’s customers to harness Virgin’s full fibre broadband ISP network in the country.
30 November – All O2-owned stores will become National Digital Inclusion Hubs – offering free O2 data, texts and calls to people who need it this Christmas; the Hubs will be available across 1,600 locations nationwide. Virgin Media O2 also increased the amount of free O2 data available to 25 GB per month.
CityFibre (CF) News
16 November – Business-focused ISP, Spitfire Network Services Ltd (Spitfire), announced an extension to its wholesale partnership with CityFibre. Spitfire has signed an agreement to sell CityFibre’s layer 2 Business Fibre to the Premises broadband product, CityFibre recently announced that its nationwide full fibre network has passed over 3m premises with more than 2.8m Ready For Service to ISPs.
Spitfire will launch its new services late November 2023, initially offering a 160 Mbps and 1 Gbps service. In time, Spitfire expects to offer a range of faster speeds of up to 10 Gbps, harnessing CityFibre’s upgrade of its network to XGS-PON technology.
29 November – Hampshire-based ISP, toob, has expanded its separate network coverage into parts of Berkshire, via CityFibre’s network. Toob also sells into a few parts of CityFibre’s rival FTTP network via a special agreement that also gave CityFibre some reciprocal access to toob’s network.
Independent Operators (AltNets) News
1 November – Telcom Group, announced the launch of GigaBritain™ which will offer channel partners to offer customers access to reliable hyperfast 10 Gbps connectivity in as little as 20 days with a 100% uptime guarantee available.
Telcom has been building and managing its own full fibre and fixed wireless network in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and soon to be Cardiff. Telcom Group also recently added London to its network coverage after the recent acquisition of Luminet. To ensure national coverage, Telcom has also partnered with national carriers such as BT Wholesale, Virgin Media Business and Sky Business to further underpin the GigaBritain™ movement.
2 November – Connexin announced that its Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) now reaches 4.8m homes. In the utilities landscape, Connexin is set to expand the network even further with plans to connect an additional 400k IoT sensors to make UK water smarter.
3 November – ISP Home Telecom – a subsidiary of the Telecom Acquisitions (TAL) group (TalkTalk holds a controlling stake) –announced yet another acquisition in the form of Homeshift. Home Telecom’s growth plan, which targets circa £38m servicing 100k properties “in the near future“.
7 November – nexfibre published its first quarterly update on progress of its nationwide rollout and planned build locations for 2024. The next stage of nexfibre’s build will see the business significantly expand its footprint across the UK, including significant coverage in Cheshire, Kent, Durham, and with both Wales and Scotland being well-served.
7 November – Voneus announced the start of a new 1 Gbps FTTP broadband roll-out across West Devon and East Cornwall in England.
8 November – Shell Energy Broadband (currently being taken over by Octopus Energy) announced they have scrapped 18-month contracts to offer 12-months contracts; in late November Shell Energy was fined £1.4m by Ofcom for failing to flag end of contracts and best deals to phone and broadband customers.
9 November – Wholesale-only full fibre network operator, MS3 Networks, has completed its network build in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire.
9 November – The Essex town of Braintree in England, which is home to just 56,000 people, has become the first location in the UK to show areas where five different gigabit-capable FTTP-based broadband ISP networks have overbuilt each other.
9 November – brsk announced that their infrastructure has grown to cover 350k premises (up from 266k on 8th August 2023).
13 November – Wessex Internet, secures additional £35m funding including Senior Debt Facility from Triodos Bank UK.
15 November – Business ISP Internet Central, which is one of the UK’s oldest internet providers, announced that it has partnered with Neos Networks to upgrade their network capacity and capabilities into the gigabit broadband era across the Midlands and Northwest of England.
16 November – brsk announced it has added the two West Yorkshire towns of Brighouse and Elland to their ongoing roll-out plan.
16 November – Quickline announced its FTTP network now covers 65k premises across 96 rural areas in parts of North Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
20 November – Business UK broadband ISP Commsworld has revealed that they’re due to complete a major £15m network and IT upgrade of Renfrewshire Council’s Wide Area Network (WAN), which forms part of the Connectivity as a Service (CaaS) contract that was signed a few years ago to help modernise local public sector sites.
21 November – Energy and telecoms provider Telecom Plus, which trades as UW (Utility Warehouse), published their latest H1 FY24 results and reported its broadband ISP has a total customer base of 363,595 (up by 22,203 in the year) and their mobile base hit 424,114 (up by 60,052).
24 November – Quickline announced it has just completed and ‘gone live’ with homes and businesses in several more villages across Lincolnshire, including Goulceby, Martin, Timberland and Belton.
27 November – Rural broadband ISP GoFibre (BorderLink), which is building a 10 Gbps capable full FTTP network across the North of England and Scottish Borders area, has announced that they’ve completed the first phase of their £6.6m state-aid supported Project Gigabit contract in rural Teesdale – putting services live across 885 covered homes.
27 November – Eastbourne-based broadband ISP Lightning Fibre, which is rolling out a new full fibre network across parts of Sussex and Kent in England, has added a new 2.5Gbps (symmetric) product tier for residential consumers.
28 November – Network operator and UK broadband ISP CommunityFibre, which is deploying a 10 Gbps capable FTTP network across London and some surrounding areas, announced it is the latest in a growing line of AltNets to confirm plans for staff redundancies and build suspension.
28 November – Zzoom announced their new 2 Gbps speed FTTP broadband network has just gone live in the Cheshire town of Middlewich. The build is said to have cost the operator £2.5m and covers 6,500 local homes and businesses.
29 November – The Common Wholesale Platform (CWP), which is a non-profit member-owned organisation that helps alternative broadband networks to provide wholesale services to the UK ISP market, has agreed a strategic partnership with Strategic Imperatives’ new Fibre Café connectivity aggregation platform.
30 November – Quickline announced the completion of their £8.1m contract to cover 8,000 premises in rural parts of Lincolnshire with “superfast” (30Mbps+) and “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) broadband.
30 November – FACTCO announced that their new gigabit-capable FTTP network has gone live for 800 premises across the riverside Cheshire (England) village and civil parish of Hale, which sits just a bit South East of Liverpool.
Other News
1 November – Digital Catapult has partnered with Ofcom, Cellnex UK and Capgemini to field test OpenRAN 5G standalone networks at new UK outdoor site.
8 November – Ofcom announced it is setting out the design of the auction for awarding licences for millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum.
In September, Ofcom confirmed that it will open the 26 GHz and 40 GHz spectrum bands to mobile technology, including 5G services.
15 November – A team of UK companies led by Stratospheric Platforms Limited (SPL), a Non Terrestrial Networks telecoms developer, has won a significant contract trialling advanced airborne 5G connectivity from a Britten-Norman Islander. SPL is pioneering the concept of using a High-Altitude Platform (HAP) with airborne antenna to provide widescale coverage of high performance 5G from the stratosphere.
16 November – Oxfordshire (England) has been named as one of the first places to benefit from the UK Government’s (DSIT) new £40m 5G Innovation Regions (5GIRs) fund, which will help local and regional authorities to test and adopt 5G and other advanced wireless broadband networks for homes and businesses.
The goal of the 5GIR fund, which will award pots of public funding worth up to £3.8m to a total of around 10 projects, is to help drive 5G adoption and commercial investment by aggregating and demonstrating demand via new networks and services.
20 November – Leicester UK scientists use AI and terahertz to boost 5G and 6G IoT connectivity.
21 November – Sky Mobile announced that its 4G and 5G mobile services are being extended into many parts of the London Underground, which most likely reflects an expected extension of their existing Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement with O2 (VMO2).
21 November – Plusnet, (part of BT Group), announced it will shortly launch a new technical trial to test their planned deployment of the IPv6 internet addressing standard, which comes a over a decade after they first trialled the technology.
22 November – 2023 Autumn Statement boosts UK full fibre and 5G Builds – full expensing.
24 November – The Government’s National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), which represents a new digital UK map of underground pipes and cables (broadband, power, water etc.) – intended to help reduce accidental damage, has released a progress update that suggests the map could be expanded and possibly even made accessible to the public.
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[1] The footprint reported by CityFibre is 3 million premises passed, including 2.6m that are ready for service.
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