UK’s £1.7bn broadband spend passes 1m homes; 13m to go?

UK broadband – fit for purpose?

Last week ministers claimed that the government’s £1.7bn budget has paid for superfast broadband to pass one million homes, so far.

This is 12% of the 8.8 million homes it is meant to serve with speeds above 24Mbps by 2017. As there appears to be no official source for the number of business premises, ministers are free to ad lib broadband availability to businesses.

There was no indication of what upload and download speeds users receive, and there are growing reports that services promised from some cabinets are now being deferred, perhaps indefinitely.

The money is all going to BT under the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme. It supplements the £2.5bn BT claims to have spent providing “superfast” service to the two-thirds of the population deemed “economically viable”, roughly the area covered by Virgin Media’s cable network.

A department of culture, media & sport spokesman said: “The £1.7bn is comprised of £1.2bn for phase 1 (£530m of BDUK funding plus local and European funding taking this up to £1.2bn) and £500m for phase 2 (£250m from BDUK to be matched by £250m further local and European funding).”

Based on the 2011 census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says there were 26.4 million households in the UK in 2013. Of these, 29% consisted of only one person and 20% had four or more people.

According to the department of business, innovation & skills, there were 4,895,655 UK businesses in 2013. Nor BIS, nor the ONS, nor the department of communities and local government (DCLG), which counts the cash raised from business rates, has a number for the physical shops, offices and factories businesses occupy.

That did not stop the Federation of Small Businesses last month from reporting that the national broadband network is unfit for business use. “The current government targets of 24Mbps for 95 per cent of the population and 2Mbps for the remaining five per cent will not meet the future demands of UK businesses.” it said. This includes video conferencing, remote back-ups and cloud applications.

This was tacitly confirmed by HMRC, which now allows firms in “remote locations” to submit their VAT returns by paper instead of online. FSB national chairman John Allan said the move will benefit many small businesses. “However, it clearly highlights the need for the government to tackle the poor state of digital infrastructure in the UK. Too many firms are negatively impacted by sub-standard broadband. It is vital business owners spend more energy doing business and less doing paperwork.”

There are also widespread reports that BT has deliberately ignored central business districts and business parks in both its commercial and taxpayer-subsidised broadband roll-outs. As a result, DCMS set up a £150m SuperConnected Cities fund that will give small business a £3,000 grant to upgrade their broadband connections in up to 22 cities.

The scheme was “red-lighted” In a Cabinet Office report in May 2013. A year later these cities had issued 1,008 vouchers.

Fixed to wireless connectivity was 77:23 with Virgin Media leading the list of suppliers followed by Metronet UK. DCMS said 149 suppliers had registered; 90 had won business as a result.

BDUK’s quarterly broadband performance indicator for June said the £72.4m BDUK has spent so far guaranteed at least 24Mbps download speeds to 888,133 premises. That is £81.56 per premises passed.

Put another way, the government is covering 12,260 premises for every million pounds spent so far. Ministers say they expect a £20 return on every pound spent on this roll-out.