UK Broadband Today the South East Picture For Ofcom

Transcription

1 UK Broadband Today the South East Picture For Ofcom David Hughes Steve Hodson Regatta House High Street Marlow Buckinghamshire SL7 1AB +44 (0)

2 Agenda Introduction The results Example maps The methodology used ADSL2+ impact Conclusion This research was sponsored by the South East of England Development Agency 2

3 Introduction Survey the whole of the South East of England at a full postcode level To determine broadband availability and performance of the copper wire (local loop) infrastructure Not to determine the quality of the service from the ISP To determine the best possible performance by postcode To estimate the number of households and businesses at different performance levels To identify locations disadvantaged by slow or no broadband 3

4 The results for the South East Postcodes Households Businesses 7 8 Mbps Mbps Mbps Mbps kbps No service No data Postcodes Households Businesses %age %age %age 7 8 Mbps 6, % 58, % 5, % Mbps 121, % 1,711, % 103, % Mbps 50, % 728, % 28, % Mbps 31, % 428, % 15, % kbps 18, % 251, % 10, % No service 3, % 38, % 2, % No data 3, % 4, % 1, % 235, % 3,221, % 168, % Source of household and business volumes: ONS Mbps = approximately 1 million bits per second 4

5 Example map Guildford and the Ockham not spot to 8 Mbps 2.5 to 4 Mbps 1 to 2 Mbps Kbps No service No Data Available

6 Basingstoke - illustrating performance tail off in suburbs to 8 Mbps 2.5 to 4 Mbps 1 to 2 Mbps Kbps No service No Data Available

7 North East Basingstoke detailed view of performance drop off in suburbs 4.5 to 8 Mbps 2.5 to 4 Mbps 1 to 2 Mbps Kbps No service No Data Available 7

8 North Hampshire a rural not spot on the boundary between three exchanges to 8 Mbps 2.5 to 4 Mbps 1 to 2 Mbps Kbps No service No Data Available

9 Hambleden Valley one of the largest not spots illustrating the consequences of previous exchange rationalisation to 8 Mbps 2.5 to 4 Mbps 1 to 2 Mbps Kbps No service No Data Available

10 The BT broadband availability checker was used to determine performance Get telephone numbers for postcodes Get household and business volumes by postcode Filtered out non geographic postcodes such at post boxes Obtained up to three telephone numbers for every postcode with more than one household and / or business Sourced from the Office for National Statistics Check broadband performance for each telephone number Ran each telephone number through the BT wholesale broadband availability checker Determine postcode performance Used the typical performance of lines in a postcode Specific criteria have been used to define typical Map postcodes Mapped and tabulated postcodes under the following categories: 4.5 Mbps, => 2.5 Mbps, => 1 Mbps, => 250(256) kbps, No service, No data 10

11 ADSL2+ will not improve coverage over long line lengths Source: Aware,

12 How to improve performance in poor performing areas? Subloop unbundling? Little different from Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) Next generation access including FTTC? Broadly speaking, the poor performing areas are high cost and are therefore likely to be left again, heightening the broadband digital divide Yet the broadband digital divide is of increasing importance Education Small businesses And over 50% of households and businesses now have broadband Ofcom should consider the broadband digital divide under its statutory duty of ensuring that a wide range of electronic communications services - including high speed data services - is available throughout the UK (source Ofcom) 12

13 Possible Ofcom actions Make broadband part of the USO Define roll out obligations and timescales for NGA to include rapid coverage of areas with poor broadband, and Define cost oriented NGA bitstream service price to include costs of reaching areas with poor broadband Coverage and timescales will have to be defined before a costing is done in any case Therefore NGA extent and timing is within Ofcom s gift BT cannot then argue that it is uneconomic to provide broadband services in high cost areas Geographically de-average NGA bitstream service pricing Full de-averaging is probably not politically acceptable 13

14 Report availability The full report and data will be available from SEEDA This will include Broadband availability data, and A survey of fibre points of presence 14

15 Conclusions BT has performed well Coverage better than nearly all other countries Only c 1% of households and businesses are excluded from broadband in the South East Nevertheless, the poorly served communities will become increasingly important, socially, economically and politically as we move to Next Generation Access It will be important for Ofcom to address this issue in the context of the regulation of Next Generation Access to ensure that poorly served communities are not isolated from the business, education and social benefits of NGA broadband 15

16 End 16

17 Determining postcode performance The worst case performance of all lines checked in the post code, unless this is no service If the worst case is no service : The postcode is assumed to have no service if a majority of lines return no service Otherwise, the next worse performance in the postcode Postcodes with no performance data: Substitute average performance of up to 30 adjacent postcodes within 264 metres If the closest post code has no service, the post code with no valid line data is also assumed to have no service Check for consistency at other performance levels Consistency check compares postcode performance with those of adjacent postcodes» Highlights those where performance differs by more than 1.4Mbps from the average of nearby postcodes, and greater than 500kbs than the nearest» Only for postcodes with 5 other postcodes nearby Using these criteria, 4% of postcodes were potentially inconsistent The data has not been cleansed to remove these possible inconsistencies 17