The days of annoying loading times and endless buffering are finally over.
In rural areas of England, Wales and Scotland, 312,000 homes and businesses will be upgraded to high-speed broadband internet, although the delivery schedule is still uncertain.
The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) today announced it will invest £800 million in renovating Britain’s old infrastructure.
An agreement has already been signed with a telecom provider Openreach to deliver gigabit broadband to 96,000 homes in the UK.
Negotiations are underway for agreements for an additional 215,800 locations and these are expected to be announced in the coming months.
A deal has already been signed with telecoms provider Openreach to bring gigabit-capable broadband to 96,000 homes across the UK. Deals to cover a further 215,800 premises are currently being negotiated and are expected to be announced in the coming months.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has announced a ‘renewed drive’ to install fibre optic cables in rural and deprived areas of the UK (stock image)
According to DSIT, this announcement is the first step in a “renewed drive” to achieve full gigabit coverage in the UK by 2030.
The government’s ‘Project Gigabit’ initiative, first unveiled in 2020, aims to bring superfast ‘gigabit-capable’ broadband connections to underserved rural areas.
A “gigabit-capable” connection is one that can download a gigabit of data every second. That’s fast enough to download a high-definition movie in less than a minute.
In January of this year, 19 percent of the country did not yet have a reliable broadband connection with gigabit capacity.
Most of the areas without gigabit connectivity are in hard-to-reach rural areas where residents still lack the connectivity needed for even basic internet usage.
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle said: ‘Over the past decade, the rollout of broadband in the UK has clearly not been fast enough and too many areas have been missed, particularly in Scotland and Wales.’
This latest investment specifically targets rural areas that have been overlooked in previous development rounds.
This includes areas of rural Wales, which have never previously been included in broadband expansion plans.
Mr Kyle said: ‘We are solving this by introducing measures for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the country, focusing on areas that were not prioritised by the previous government, such as Wales.’
The government has already signed contracts worth £288 million for areas in Lancashire, North Wiltshire, South Gloucestershire, West and Mid Surrey, Staffordshire, West Berkshire and Hertfordshire, West and North Devon and North West, Mid and South East Wales.
Further contracts to bring broadband to the remaining 215,800 people are currently being negotiated with Openreach, with further details expected to be announced in the coming months.
A 2023 report found that some of the worst areas for full fibre rollout were in rural areas such as the Isles of Scilly or Orkney
The government has signed contracts with Openreach, a telecommunications provider, to provide gigabit-capable connections to 312,000 people
19 percent of the country did not have gigabit-capable connections at the start of this year. These older connections can be slow at peak times, making working from home extremely difficult (stock image)
Areas expected to benefit from the deals include Central and Northern Scotland, North and South West Wales, Mid and South Devon, East and South Shropshire, North Herefordshire, North Somerset, Essex, North East England and Worcestershire.
The slow connection speed in rural areas is largely due to the use of old copper wires.
Compared to modern fiber optic systems, copper connections are very limited in the amount of data they can carry.
Because fiber optic cables can carry multiple signals simultaneously, their bandwidth is significantly greater than that of copper.
This change is similar to replacing a narrow country road with a six-lane highway. This means that internet traffic is not slowed down or congested during peak hours.
Many Britons are struggling with slow broadband speeds and 2023 figures reveal which streets have the worst connections.
There is an ongoing effort to achieve full fibre broadband, but progress has been slow so far.
Some streets in the UK are experiencing slow connection speeds of 0.6Mb while waiting for fibre to be installed.
For comparison, Ofcom advises that 10Mb per second is the minimum ‘decent’ speed that homes should get.
Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said: ‘Research shows that fibre offers a range of economic, social and environmental benefits and I believe we are the best in the industry in this area.
‘I am proud that we have been selected, after a very competitive process, and we are already busy with the job.’