More fibre in the broadband diet

More fibre in the broadband diet

How could the DCMS incentivise operators to rollout ultra-fast broadband and 5G to ensure that UK households and businesses benefit from cutting-edge telecoms services?

We assessed and modelled operators’ incentive to invest in new technologies. This enabled us to establish how government policy may help the UK achieve nationwide coverage for fibre and 5G quicker than just leaving it to the market.

Quick, quicker, quickest

The UK has good superfast broadband, but poor ultrafast connectivity. What we require is more fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology.

There is already great excitement about the launch of 5G, as it is likely to represent a step-change in capabilities compared to previous mobile technologies.

We worked with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to assess investment drivers and make recommendations on what was needed to support faster and more extensive FTTP and 5G roll out.

Invest Tech

We modelled operators’ incentives to invest in fibre and 5G under different policy interventions. We also interviewed stakeholders to find out the key barriers to investment.

Our reports were among the key inputs into the DCMS policy document “Forging a full fibre broadband and 5G future for all”.

The state steps in

Our modelling predicts that 70% of the UK will get fibre coverage in the medium term absent any government intervention.

Based on our work, the government is putting in place interventions that are expected to accelerate fibre roll-out and result in 50% of UK households having fibre coverage by 2025 and nationwide fibre coverage by 2033.