Nations' supplements

These reports examine the availability of good communications across the nations.

England

The latest Connected Nations report for England shows:

Superfast broadband (SFBB) coverage in England has increased 2 percentage points (pp) to 92%. Coverage in rural areas has increased by 7pp to 69%. Access for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) has also increased to 85%, up 3pp from 2016;
Full fibre services are now available to 776,000 (3%) of premises in England, which is in line with the 840,000 (3%) of UK premises, up from 2% last year;
Whilst the percentage of premises in England unable to receive basic broadband speeds is lower than the other nations, England’s greater population means the actual number of premises unable to receive 10Mbit/s download speed and 1Mbit/s upload speed remains higher than in any of the other nations, at an estimated 790,000 premises; and
Voice and text coverage has continued to improve across England, with outdoor coverage now at 88% of landmass, up 7pp from 2016, and indoor coverage at 91% of premises, a 5pp increase.

Northern Ireland

The latest Connected Nations report for Northern Ireland shows that:

The report shows:

Superfast broadband (>=30Mbit/s), is now available to 85% of premises in Northern Ireland, two percentage points (pp) higher than last year. Superfast broadband is available to 57% of premises in rural areas, up from 52% last year.
Across Northern Ireland, 93% of premises have access to services that can deliver basic broadband, a broadband connection which provides download speeds of 10Mbit/s or more and an upload speed of 1Mbit/s or more. This leaves around 56,000 premises with connections unable to support these speeds.
The percentage of premises that cannot get 2Mbit/s has fallen slightly to 3% (or just over 23,000 premises).
The average download speed delivered to premises in Northern Ireland is 39Mbit/s. This has increased from 34Mbit/s last year and reflects increasing availability and take-up of superfast services.

78% of premises in Northern Ireland have indoor voice coverage from all four operators (Vodafone, O2, EE and Three), an increase of 5pp since 2016. Outdoor geographic coverage of voice services has increased to 83%, an increase of 7pp on 2016.
Indoor mobile data coverage (combined 3G and 4G) from all four operators now extends to 75% of premises in Northern Ireland, and has increased by 5pp since 2016. There has been a similar increase in outdoor geographic coverage for mobile data services to 76%, 5pp higher than a year ago.
Indoor 4G coverage from all four operators is available in 44% of premises, up from 34% in 2016. 4G outdoor geographic coverage has increased to 60%, compared to 30% in 2016.
62% of Northern Ireland’s A and B road network is covered by mobile voice services from all four operators, compared to 68% for the UK as a whole. However, voice and data coverage on roads is higher in Northern Ireland than in both Scotland and Wales.

Scotland

The latest Connected Nations report for Scotland shows that:

superfast broadband availability continues to increase and now reaches 87% of premises in Scotland;
six percent of premises in Scotland still struggle to get basic broadband services, a connection which provides a download speed of at least 10Mbit/s and an upload speed of at least 1Mbit/s, particularly in rural areas of Scotland;
just over 5% of premises are unable to get a download speed of at least 10Mbit/s;
a significant number of consumers could be getting faster speeds by upgrading, with only 39% of connections in Scotland actually delivering superfast speeds;
coverage of full fibre services has more than doubled, but is still only available to 1% of premises; and
average monthly data consumption in Scotland has increased significantly from last year.

mobile voice services from all four operators now covers 87% of premises in Scotland;
geographic voice and data coverage from all four operators has improved (40% and 31% respectively) but still lags behind the rest of the UK;
there remain large areas of Scotland’s landmass where it is not possible to receive a mobile voice (22%) or mobile data (33%) service;
geographic 4G coverage in Scotland has increased to 17% from 6% but still significantly lags behind the rest of the UK; and
challenges remain in delivering mobile coverage to consumers on the move, with only 46% of Scotland’s A&B roads covered by mobile voice services.

Wales

This latest Connected Nations report for Wales shows that:

superfast broadband (SFBB) coverage has increased by 4pp to 89% of premises in Wales;
rural Wales (along with rural Scotland) saw the largest improvement in Superfast Broadband coverage compared to last year, seeing an increase of 10pp to 66%;
the percentage of premises that are unable to get basic broadband, a connection which provides a download speed at least 10Mbit/s and an upload speed at least 1Mbit/s, has fallen to 5%;
indoor 4G premises coverage by all mobile operators has increased by 21pp to 34%, while indoor all-operator coverage of data services has increased by 16pp to 73%; and
geographic all-operator voice and text coverage (including voice over LTE, or VoLTE) is now 62%, while geographic all-operator data coverage has increased by 25pp to 52%.

Related content