A Competitive Digital Communications Infrastructure

UK broadband availability

Our analysis of broadband availability is as follows:

We estimate that today c.89% of homes can readily get a 2Mbps (or higher) broadband service from cable, ADSL or wireless means. This means that c.11%, or about 2.75m, homes cannot readily get a 2Mbps (or higher) broadband service today.

We believe the main reasons that prevent these 2.75m homes from getting a 2Mbps broadband service are:

Problematic home wiring (c.1.9m homes);
Random network effects (c.300k homes); and
Telephone line too long (c.550k homes).

Having considered what the potential solutions might be, our initial conclusions are as follows:

Home wiring problems resolved by market/self help (c.800k homes);
Home wiring problems resolved under USC (c.1.1m homes);
Random network effects resolved by special investigation (c.100k homes);
Long telephone line resolved by FTTC upgrade (c.420k homes); and
Residual random network effects and long lines resolved by wireless/satellite (c.330k homes).

The above figures are based on 100% take-up and can thus be scaled down according to any take-up assumption.

The following two maps indicate where the bad lines are most prevalent.

Percentage of bad lines due to length in Great Britain