Connected Nations 2018: Nations' supplements
18 December 2018
These reports examine the availability of good communications across the nations.
The latest Connected Nations Report for England shows:
- Access to superfast broadband services continues to increase. Superfast broadband coverage is now at 94% - up from 92% in 2017. In rural areas, 76% of homes and businesses have access to high speed services. 1.5 million premises (6%) now have access to full fibre services.
- Around half of homes in England could get faster broadband than they do now.
- However, 484,000 homes are still unable to access a decent broadband speed. Whilst this has dropped by over 306,000 since 2017, 2% of homes and businesses in England still can’t access a service delivering 10 Mbit/s download and 1 Mbit/s upload speed. The majority of these remaining homes (around 322,000) are in rural areas. 11% of rural premises in England cannot access a decent broadband speed.
- 82% of England’s landmass has good 4G coverage from all four mobile operators. Voice services from all operators cover 91% of England’s landmass. Individual operator coverage for 4G is higher, at between 89% and 95% of England’s landmass. 78% of homes and businesses have good indoor 4G coverage from all four operators. However the experience isn’t the same across England - only 42% of properties in rural areas have good 4G coverage from all four mobile operators.
The latest Connected Nations report for Northern Ireland shows:
- Superfast broadband (>=30Mbit/s), is now available to 89% of premises in Northern Ireland, three percentage points (pp) higher than last year. Superfast broadband is available to 67% of premises in rural areas, up from 57% last year.
- Across Northern Ireland, 95% of premises have access to services that can deliver decent broadband, a broadband connection which provides download speeds of 10Mbit/s or more and upload speed of 1Mbit/s or more. This leaves around 40,000 premises with connections unable to support these speeds, a reduction of around 15,000 premises compared to last year.
- The average download speed delivered to premises in Northern Ireland is 43Mbit/s. This has increased from 39Mbit/s in 2017 and reflects increasing availability of faster broadband services.
- Good 4G services from all four operators are available (outdoor) across 79% of the Northern Ireland landmass while voice services from all four operators are available (outdoor) to 88% of the Northern Ireland landmass.
- 57% of premises and 61% of major roads in Northern Ireland have good indoor / in-vehicle 4G coverage from all four operators.
- Voice services (indoor) from all four operators are available in 80% of premises in Northern Ireland and 78% of major roads (in-vehicle).
The latest Connected Nations report for Wales shows that, over the past year:
- Superfast broadband coverage in Wales has increased to 93% of homes and businesses from 89% last year. This refers to the availability of fixed broadband services with a download speed of at least 30Mbit/s.
- Over 95,000 homes and businesses in Wales now have access to full-fibre connections (compared to 44,000 last year). These connections can deliver much higher download speeds, of up to 1Gbit/s.
- 90% of Wales’ landmass has access to good 4G mobile coverage from at least one operator, while 57% has coverage from all four mobile network operators. Within this, individual operator coverage varies, with the highest being 83% and the lowest 67%.
The latest Connected Nations report for Scotland shows that, over the past year:
- Superfast broadband coverage has increased to 92% of homes and businesses in Scotland from 87% last year. This refers to the availability of fixed broadband services with a download speed of at least 30 Mbit/s.
- Over the last year the coverage of ultrafast broadband in Scotland has increased from 30% to 44% while almost 4% of premises now have access to a full-fibre connection.
- 4G mobile coverage from at least one operator now reaches 78% of Scotland’s landmass.
- Indoor mobile voice coverage from all operators in Scottish homes and businesses has passed 90%.
- Just under half of motorways and A-roads in Scotland have good in-car 4G coverage from all operators.