Up to 25% of new builds still can't get superfast broadband – study Up to a quarter of new builds still lack access to superfast internet, according to a study by comparison site Thinkbroadband. The research, based on data from the Office for National Statistics, estimates that one in four to one in five new premises don't have provision for 30Mbps. It said: "What is clear from our data is …
@Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese - "what are your use cases whereby you see 600Mbps"
Not having to wait 6 hours to download the new 60GB game I just brought from Steam, whilst at the same time having 1 kid crying Netflix is unwatchable and the other scream his XBox is sh*t (as the network lag keeps getting him killed)...
I can think of many more reasons.. but they're not for public discussion! (Like the Data Center my friend used to run in his garage!)
I don't understand why people are downvoting this. If a standard broadband line can achieve up to 24Mbps then 30Mbps is hardly "superfast", especially when you consider FTTC up to 78Mbps has been around for over 5 years now, plus there is >100Mpbs cable which has been around longer.
As a consumer* I would consider 50-100Mbps as acceptable - I simply won't live anywhere with a line capable of less. 100-200 I would consider fast and I would prefer over my current 78Mbps. >200Mbps is superfast, asI think superfast should be the definition of the upper end - only available to those in high density areas given it should be whatever the cutting edge of residential distribution is.
*that is, my personal opinion and clearly not the opinion of current policy-setters
As a consumer* I would consider 50-100Mbps as acceptable - I simply won't live anywhere with a line capable of less.
And that's the problem with terms like "superfast". You want 50-100Mbps; and, sure, there are use cases for that.
I, on the other hand, was perfectly happy with the ADSL service I had for a year here at the Mountain Fastness (my alternative home, when I'm not lording it over the local populace from the big house in the Land of Trees and Lakes). We might have gotten something like 10Mbps down, and quite a bit less up. I work from home, and when my wife was here she was working from home too, and when we watched television we were streaming from NetPrimeHuWhatever. And it was all fine.
Now we have fiber to the house because the local power-and-telecom co-op rolled it out, and it's officially rate-limited to something like 40Mbps because I have no reason to pay for more. The main difference is that now we have a 4G picocell using the fiber connection for backhaul, so that's an improvement; and we no longer have to reboot the crap ADSL modem/router half a dozen times a day.
Back in the day I used to work from home over Bonded Basic Rate ISDN, and that was fine except when some idiot helpful coworker sent me an email with a megabyte of attachments. Before that I had a 56Kbps dedicated line, and before that I had a pair of Telebit Trailblazers for SLIP and UUCP. I got my work done.
So for me, this 40Mbps fiber connection is "superfast", in the sense of "significantly more than I need". I could pay a little more each month for 60Mbps, but I have no reason to do so.
> one in four to one in five new premises don't have provision for 30Mbps.
Until there is data on what percentage of premises (homes. businesses, schools, etc) actually run up against the limit of their available bandwidth, this sort of statistic is meaningless.
If no user, anywhere in the country ever found they needed more than this (or any other arbitrary definition of "fast", "super-fast", "ultra-fast" or "so unbelievably, incredibly, eye-wateringly fast" connectivity) then it wouldn't matter what proportion of places didn't have access to it.
For any sense to be gleaned from this, the proportion of people who don't have it is irrelevant. What matters is who needs more and what effect not having more will have on their lives or businesses.
What else would expect from a lobbyist? Sort of odd that there still seems to be a monopoly of supply, which can only drive up costs on new developments, whereas pretty much anyone qualified should be able to lay the fibre and the provider can be put out to tender. Also, seems to imply that homeowners are either aren't involved or don't care: what kind of utilities would you like in your new house?
Now, be a good boy and try out my revolutionary new tobacco ingestion device: studies show how much healthier it is than comparable models and how much happier new smokers are.
Sorry, couldn't afford a dig at the tobacco lobby: cunts.
we had fibre cable (Videotron) run along our 1930s semi-detached road
A friend bought a new-build (so new that the roads weren't completely tarmaced before he moved in) a mile away.
He asked about cable, and was told it would be "in the next 5 year plan".
He had a family, moved out, and there's still no fibre to the estate.
And to think, we laughed at the Soviet Union.
Which is exactly the issue here.
AFAIK, there is NO legal obligation for a developer to provide broadband infrastructure. At all.
Till recently, there were obligations (hold on to your chair) to provide specifically copper if some units were planned as compliant with accessibility requirements. This was because mobile and radio as alarm and distress connectivity in the UK were (and probably still are) considered enterprise products (the only country in Europe with this idiotism). Residential alarm and distress products as required for example for a "Red" button were copper only. I am not going to point the finger to which company was instrumental in the creation and maintenance of this idiocy, it is well known.
So if a developer was obliged by planning permission to have let's say 1% units compliant with accessibility requirements (quite common nowdays - it is a standard planning req) the whole new development was planned for copper just in case.
That was the case I dealt with this last time (not so long ago).
Even if things have changed, it is so recent that the new developments in question are not yet available.
>Till recently, there were obligations
Furthermore, if you bother to go through the Ofcom consultations on FTTP, you will see that it was the full-fibre Alt-ISPs that were the main objectors to a FTTP mandate on new build, in part because of the mandate that the installer had to provide batteries (originally with a 4 hour life, now with a 1 hour life) so a telephone service could be maintained over the FTTP in the event of a power cut. Basically, the Alt-ISPs deemed it was a cost and that BT should provide the batteries, even if the Alt supplied the line and thus took the revenue. Thus the stage was set for an effective monopoly provision of FTTP on new build...
I am spanish, so I also know (well, I know better) the spanish legislation.. and in spain, it is mandatory to have the telephone/telco system ready in the building, made by the builder, before anyone can legally move in.
Also, as part of the new zone being build, as the other infrastructure is being built, so is the telco infrastructure. It is considered a basic need, and a mandatory requirement for zoning. No permission otherwise.
Spain has plenty of problems (just look at the news) but not this.
Of, and FTTH in spain is now 600Mbps symmetrical. Now that I would call excesive, but 30?
I have Virgin docsis, and it is ok,
not ultrafast by any means.. and if you want to do any fancy stuff (like online backups, work from home at the same time, etc) it is "adequate, not good", as I have to throttle a lot.. as it is not symmetrical.
"AFAIK, there is NO legal obligation for a developer to provide broadband infrastructure. At all."
Not only that, but the building company charge high access fees to allow contractors in to run the connections. It's cheaper to wait until the roads etc. have all been handed over to the local council (could be years) and then go in and dig up the roads/footpaths if there's an economic benefit to doing so. It seems to be one of those things where suggestions and self-regulation have failed and legislation is required. Then the house builders can spend more money lobbying and contesting and wailing about extra costs.
You'd think, being a tech oriented person (as most of us reading here are) that a good BB connection to a new build would be be a big selling point these days. But it's not. There's enough of a housing shortage that new builds are snapped up. Some buyers are buying "off the plan", ie before it's even built because they know the property will be worth a lot more once everyone has moved in. Ever noticed how many new builds have For Sale signs outside them within months of becoming habitable?
>Not only that, but the building company charge high access fees to allow contractors in to run the connections.
Good point and one I overlooked. It surprises many people that my development, completed 10+ years ago the roads have yet to be adopted by the local council, until then everything has to go via the original developer. So I suspect one of reasons BT don't have any plans to upgrade the Phase 1 cabinet is because additional costs will be incurred, which won't be when the roads are adopted... Hence more reason for residents to bring pressure to bear on Bloor Homes...
Something the bunglers of Ofcom and DCMS have yet to understand is that a high bit rate is of itself not enough - low latency and high reliability are also very important.
Admittedly on the wider web, content delivery standards are outside the ISPs control, but that shouldn't prevent them having to have demanding standards that require:
1) good, reliable connections that don't fall over too often,
2) don't suffer regular slowdowns due to contention (ie lack of capacity planning),
3) a decent and stable low latency connection to the ISP's own servers, and
4) minimal or nil packet loss between the customer and the ISP's servers.
I know we could add a whole host of other tech detail, but I'm just looking from a customer perspective that the connection is there when you want it, delivers its full contracted performance, doesn't flail about with miserable ping (screwing up gaming, tele and video conferencing), and delivers the requested data without losing it.
But we're probably more informed than most customers. And probably developers. Those I think fall into 2 camps-
Ones that don't care, and don't know about this-
https://www.ref04.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/contactus/connectingyourdevelopment/developnetwork.do
Where Openreach explains all. And by 'developers', that should include architects and other planners. It's a lot easier if this is done as the ground works are being planned.
The camp are probably the developers who view this as something that can be lumped into a 'service charge', or charged seperately as a service. Because the developer's got a son/mate who might be able to config a LAN switch, and it's easy money. That camp may then go out of their way to obstruct owners from switching services.. So if a new development promises 'super fast broadband', be wary.
we dont use our 100mb line all the time but it IS used in bursts. The kids both go and turn their laptops on, windows downloads an update. I dont want my netflix turning to minecraft mode. The kids always have their phones on and the tablets are rarely turned off. Again, these might burst download rather than saturate constantly.
What we need more of is upload. Virgin are quite stingy on pushing stuff out of the house.
Virgin are quite stingy on pushing stuff out of the house.
That's because they're still using DOCSIS 3.0, which was primarily designed to deliver TV over cable (ie downstream delivery). SInce most traffic is download, there's no point using extra channels for upload because the vast majority of the time they'll be unused. When Vermin Media start using DOCSIS 3.1 (it is a plan, but without a date) there will be a five to ten fold increase in upstream bandwidth, and if they adopt the full duplex variation, then there will be the same bandwidth up and down.
But because Liberty Global loses money (due to its stupid M&A activity) its businesses like VM are being run for cash, and anything that requires money can wait.
Danny wrote: Virgin are quite stingy on pushing stuff out of the house.
Ledswinger wrote: That's because they're still using DOCSIS 3.0
As far as I know, they can't go (much) faster upstream without a massive infrastructure upgrade: there are amplifiers along the several-hundred metre co-ax runs, but only for downstream. Upstream frequencies are filtered (frequency division duplex, although each direction is also TDM between users) and bypass the amplifiers. Both the filtering and lack of amplification mean upstream is constrained to low frequencies.
The other way to increase upstream data rates, sharing between fewer people, is also fundamentally limited by current infrastructure (where the cables run), and probably not desirable anyway.
This is based on old information and could be wrong... Happy to be corrected.
As far as I know, they can't go (much) faster upstream without a massive infrastructure upgrade:
They can offer 20 Mbps upstream to customers on the 300 Mbps package, but seem reluctant to spread that more widely. Regarding downstream, I suspect they could wring 500 Mbps out of the current shitty Hub 3 and EuroDOCSIS 3.0, which is a beyond the current 300/350 Mbps top speed they're promoting, but they won't get much beyond that.
Meanwhile Liberty Global have repeatedly told investors that DOCSIS 3.1 will be launched in 2018, but they haven't said where (even which country), and nothing on the roll out strategy. Given the parlous commercials of Liberty Global, I conclude that Virgin Media don't have much money to do the infrastructure upgrades (given the Project Lightning cost and mess, and urgent capacity issues in many locations).
So putting those together, VM will have to do 3.1 to keep faith with investors, but they don't have to offer it universally, and they don't have to do it quickly.
Roland6 wrote "Are the Swiss consuming significantly more digital services than households in the UK on FTTC/FTTP/VM?"
A very good question and I have no idea of the answer. One potential data point is that many ISPs bundle IPTV with their services which must increase bandwidth requirements. For my own usage, upload speed is far more important as I have a photography habit and do a lot of backups to the cloud.
"I suggest at these speeds the only competition is in the marketing claims: our network is faster than the competition..."
I suspect that for many home users this is the case. For someone like a graphic designer or videographer I can see how having cheap and fast Internet is hugely useful.
>Are the Swiss consuming significantly more digital services than households in the UK on >FTTC/FTTP/VM?
More digital services.... unclear, teleboxes are ubiquitous and no longer locally save, netflix don't officially serve us swiss yet....
We do have a more "forward thinking" attitude towards work from home (kids just don't have school Wednesday afternoon?!), but woe betide those whom do not have the capacity to perform their hired function while working at home (thinks corporate enterprises with minimal local hdd on lappy, world+dog+MyDocuments "on SharePoint").
Swisscom's not great (think you've had trouble with BT telephonic customer service, rofl, you've not been bounced around customer services in 4 languages), but this is nice.
>Have you seen the amount of photos and videos people upload now-a-days?
Yes, most weekends after a cycle race, I upload several GBs of race photos(think a few hundred photos from a top end SLR) over what is at best 10Mbps uplink. Not had a problem, unlike trying to upload a couple of images whilst out in the field over 3/4G to WhatsApps/Facebook/Email...
I think the problem is people's expectations: they want everything Now!
Thus the upload needs to be instantaneous, the download to their consumption/viewing device needs to be instantaneous etc.
recently sold half her back garden to a developer who built 6 modern hovels on it.
Is Openreach supposed to be forced to lay fibre and install a new cabinet because the existing one is 1/2 km away?
Thanks to planning regulation it would not surprise me if half of all new builds are on shitty little brown field sites and that half of those are not within 30Mb/s distance of a cabinet.
Is Openreach supposed to be forced to lay fibre and install a new cabinet because the existing one is 1/2 km away?
Why not? The developers should be required to pay for it, given the obscene profits most of them are making. And the basic trench digging and conduit laying could be done by the developer, since that's a civils job.
Is Openreach supposed to be forced to lay fibre and install a new cabinet because the existing one is 1/2 km away?
It's not up to openreach. It's the developers responsibility to order telephony infrastructure from someone. So your question should more correctly be phrased as Are developers supposed to be forced to order fibre regardless of location?
Openreach (or whichever CP the developer eventually signs up with) will do whatever is necessary to provide the infrastructure that the developer has ordered. As it happens openreach have been running offers for a couple of years now whereby they will install FTTP for the same cost as twisted pair for a certain number of properties. I'm pretty sure it needs to be more than six houses though so that developer would probably have to choose to pay extra.
Is Openreach supposed to be forced to lay fibre and install a new cabinet because the existing one is 1/2 km away?
And what about, gas, leccy and sewage? Should the developer be forced to pay for their access as well? Sheesh, how do you expect property developers, and your mum, to make obscene profits a living?
"Thanks to planning regulation it would not surprise me if half of all new builds are on shitty little brown field sites and that half of those are not within 30Mb/s distance of a cabinet."
It's also worth noting that a not of new residential homes are not new builds, they are conversions, eg 1 off barns etc and large multi-occupancy factory or office conversions into flats. Not only are these less constrained on planning permissions, but are fluidly added to or subtracted from the "new build" figures depending on what the person compiling the figures is trying to claim.
This 1 in 4 won't last long because people won't buy new build without broadband in increasing numbers forcing house builders to consider broadband at the early planning stage. Maybe legislation needs to be passed because internet is starting to become more like a utility these days, sure you can get by without it but it is increasingly becoming a necessity considering most government agencies are mostly online now.
This 1 in 4 won't last long because people won't buy new build without broadband in increasing numbers forcing house builders to consider broadband at the early planning stage.
That's people who are buying as a first home.
Landlords meanwhile won't give a damn, unless the lack of broadband puts off potential tenants, which is unlikely considering absolutely nothing is putting off potential tenants right now, including astronomical rent, lack of toilets, ceilings, etc.
So you're quite right. This 1 in 4 won't last long; in no time at all it'll be 1 in 3.
because people won't buy new build without broadband in increasing numbers
You might assume so, I can assure you that the majority of housebuilders build what they want to build, not what the buyer wants. Look at the often cheap, shitty construction standards. The often small, crappy windows. Tiny rooms, lack of storage. Inadequate insulation (statutory minimum). Cheap bathrooms. Crappy plasterboard walls. Lack of internal network cabling. Insufficient power sockets. Tiny gardens made of rubble and subsoil. Roads so narrow that everybody blocks the pavement. Garages that would only store a car if you can climb out through the sun roof. When did ANYBODY respond to market research and say "Yes, those are the things I want?" Or for an "off plan" sale, specify those horrible features?
In an illiquid market where price and location are the main deciders, mass market builders have never worried what people want. If the final sale price is not affected much by the detail specification (which is generally true), then every penny scrimped on the specification is extra profit for the builder.
So you can't rely on market pressure. It should be the planning authorities. My house was built in 1997, and the planners specified all manner of shite in terms of micro-managing the development. It wouldn't be too hard (other than the dearth of common sense in local gov't planning) to just make high speed brroadband a condition of planning permission (as the article says).
>Someone is either fiddling the figures or developers and OpenReach are doing something really weird.
most of the new builds are on green/brown field sites that are in the main in areas that currently don't have superfast broadband.
For example in my area as part of the BDUK project the exchange was upgraded to FTTC, but a significant number of villages were considered to be economically unviable, so got nothing.
Drop a 5000 home new development on this (disused airfield) without full engagement of say Openreach (ie. the onus is on the developer to contact Openreach, not on Openreach finding out after the event that some tiny backwater subexchange has just had a significant increase in subscribers), those homes might be fibre from the home to the (new) cabinet, but cabinet to exchange?
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