UK reaches 95% broadband goal
On Monday, the government praised the closing of the UK’s “digital divide” and confirmed the report by Thinkbroadband.com that 95% of businesses and homes in the UK now had access to superfast broadband connections that exceeded 24Mbps.
However, the report cautioned that the 95% figure was “not a consistent 95 per cent across all communities in the UK.” As stated in the report, some areas, such as Worthing, Watford, Tamworth and Epson had coverage in the 99% range, while the City of London, Orkney Islands, Western Isles and Kingston Upon Hull lagged behind with coverage at 50.3%, 66.8%, 71% and 71.7% respectively.
Thinkbroadband.com noted that is still was a challenge to bring the latest broadband technology to rural areas and that some locations, including Wildhern and Hatherden in Hampshire, still did not have access to superfast broadband connections.
Digital and culture secretary Matt Hancock confirmed that the rollout was not complete and that there still was a lot of work to build “a Britain that’s fit for the future.” He added that thousands more households and businesses were receiving access to superfast broadband connections every week and that the government was committed to “making affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband a legal right to everyone by 2020.”
Openreach and BT infrastructure engineers worked jointly in the last-minute push to reach the goal and that December was an especially busy month.
Clive Selley, Openreach’s chief executive, said that meeting the goal was “an extraordinary achievement,” and he thanked the thousands of engineers who worked so hard to make it happen.