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3.84 million U.K. premises connected under BDUK and queen promises ‘the right’ to high-speed broadband, but there could be a hefty cost for some.
The U.K.’s government-backed broadband rollout programme this week released new figures that show it is just about meeting its targets for extending high-speed Internet coverage to difficult to reach areas, but while all looks rosy on paper, people living in remote locations are still not getting what they need and could find themselves paying a high price for connectivity in future.
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on Thursday announced that as of the end of March 3.84 million U.K. premises had access to a superfast broadband service as a result of projects carried out under the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme.
That’s more than 215,000 more compared the start of the year and puts the state on track to meet the goal it shared in December of 4 million premises covered by spring 2016. Given the extreme weather experienced by much of the U.K. in the early part of 2016, it is reasonable to claim that end-March did not yet constitute spring.
The new BDUK stats were published a day after the state opening of parliament, at which the queen delivered her customary address, this time giving high priority, albeit briefly, to broadband.
Her majesty talked up "the right for every household to access high-speed broadband," a reference to the government’s digital economy bill, which will include a revised universal service obligation (USO), giving every household the right to request a minimum 10-Mbps broadband service.
Doubtless Buckingham Palace already has access to as many megabits as it could possibly need, as do many people in urban areas. But watching local news reports in more far-flung parts of the U.K. on Wednesday evening was quite an eye-opener.
There is still considerable amount of anger in areas such as Devon and Somerset, where some businesses are being forced to relocate to gain sufficient bandwidth, while anecdotal evidence shows people driving long distances just to access a connection with a decent upload speed.
And, despite government rhetoric, the USO will not necessarily solve the problem, in no small part due to a lack of clarity over who will pay for connecting rural and remote locations.
In an April consultation document designed to inform its recommendations on the new broadband USO, Ofcom highlighted an issue that is a cause for concern for high-speed broadband wannabes in remote areas: the fact that the end user may well have to contribute to the cost of the connection.
Under the current USO, designed around the voice telephony market, a universal service provider (under the old regime that would be BT, of course) is only required to meet "reasonable" requests for a USO connection, and reasonable is based in no small part on cost.
For a phone connection, reasonable cost is defined as not in excess of £3,400. If the cost to connect a location comes in above that, the consumer may make up the cost difference in order to have the service installed, in addition to paying the standard £130 connection charge that all users pay for a BT line. The regulator has yet to make a recommendation on an appropriate cost threshold for broadband, but suggestions that it could be at a similar level have not been well received in the outer reaches of the country.
And that’s before we even get to the question of how the USO will be funded and by whom.
Major U.K. telcos aren’t exactly queuing up to throw their hard-earned cash at providing connections in places in which returns on investment are in question, while the government likes to keep tight control over the purse strings.
Then there is the added pressure of the timeframe to consider.
The policy that led to BDUK was presented in late 2010, and the rollout programme is set to conclude in December 2017.
For the USO, the government wants to introduce the right to request 10-Mbps broadband in 2020. It is fair to say that this policy is not on the same scale as BDUK, but given the complexity of thrashing out a new USO, the 2020 target might prove to be ambitious.
Would it be too far-fetched to suggest that the government privately hopes that by 2020 the industry will have largely negated the need for a USO?
It will be interesting to see how the debate pans out over the coming months, particularly at Total Telecom’s Connected Britain event on 15-16 June. With Ed Vaizey, Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, and new Openreach CEO Clive Selley due to kick off proceedings on day one and a host of altnets on the attendee list, the sparks are set to fly. Don’t miss it!
