Broadband News

Current fibre broadband plans fall short of demand

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

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Current next generation broadband plans will not cover even half of the areas of high demand, it has been revealed.

Research from analysts Point Topic, which mapped the UK based on current broadband demand as well as plans for future fibre networks, found that less than 40% of the population would have next generation access (NGA) by 2012.

BT Broadband (www.BT.com) plans to develop its own fibre network, which Point Topic estimates will cover around 35% of the UK by 2012, with other projects from Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) and smaller, independent companies adding to the figure.

Tim Johnson, chief analyst at Point Topic, said: “The current plans won’t even cover half of the areas of high demand.”

“BT’s planned NGA rollout, as so far announced, falls a long way short of covering even those areas where NGA should be economically attractive even without subsidy,” the researchers added. “Thus about 60% of the UK population have no prospect of getting NGA before 2012, and maybe for much longer.”

Fibre broadband connections can offer speeds of either up to 40Mb or as fast as 100Mb broadband depending on the technology uses.

In other news, the seaside town of Bournemouth has come top of a survey to find the UK’s fastest broadband towns and cities, with an average of 8.06Mb - almost double the UK average of 4.1Mb.

Bournemouth is the site of a new fibre to the home project that will deliver speeds of up to 100Mb, though this is not yet active across the town.

Portsmouth took second place, with an average of 7.82Mb, followed by Dudley with 7.03Mb, while London came in 15th place with an average of 6.63Mb.

Michael Phillips, Broadbandchoices.co.uk product director, said: “Although this research has shown that plans for next generation networks are not spread evenly across the UK, Virgin Media already offers 50Mb broadband with its own superfast broadband cable network, which is available to 51% of the country.

“However, it is true that many people could be left behind as more areas take up next generation broadband. The Government is still working on its promise to deliver speeds of at least 2Mb to every home by 2012, while some areas are trialling 40Mb, 100Mb and even 200Mb broadband.”

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