The pledge for full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business in the UK by 2025 was made by Prime Minister, Boris Johnson in the 2019 general election. This brought the original goal of full coverage by 2033 forward eight years.
The government have quietly scaled back this target in details buried in the Spending Review documents, now aiming to connect 85% of premises by 2025, and will seek to accelerate roll-out further to get as close to 100% as possible.
£5 billion of funding was originally allocated to connect those rural homes and businesses which private companies do not connect because they are not profitable. Whilst this £5 billion will still be made available, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak has committed just £1.2 billion of that to cover the next four years of development, with the rest to be made available after 2025.
From the offset, many believed this aim was ambitious so this new target will come as no surprise to them, confirming the 2025 target was unrealistic in the first place. Some industry experts believe that lowering the minimum target to 85% risks leaving behind those in the most remote areas, who will be the most difficult to reach.
This will be a huge blow to rural communities suffering from bad internet - especially when many are working from home due to coronavirus.
The majority of the full fibre (FTTP) gigabit-capable broadband is expected be from commercial providers, with Openreach, Virgin Media and ‘altnets’ like Cityfibre, Hyperoptic and Gigaclear all investing in full fibre or gigabit networks. Whilst this new target will not stop providers continuing with their own planned rollouts, network construction is expensive so their focus will inevitably be on urban areas.
The concern is networks will cover the same areas as they compete for business, missing out rural properties that are hard and expensive to get to. The gaps in coverage are supposed to be filled by government funding, but the new reduced target and lowering of funding till 2025 will leave the very properties it was designed to help struggling.
Currently, over a third of the UK has access to gigabit-capable connections, with more than half expected to have access by next year.
Openreach plans to connect four million properties to full fibre by March 2021 and up to 20 million by the end of the decade. Virgin Media plans to bring gigabit speeds to 15 million premises by the end of next year.