The UK government is trying to address this issue. As part of its Broadband Delivery UK intervention (BDUK) programme the plan is to deliver superfast broadband to 90 per cent of the population by the end of this year, rising to 95 per cent by the end of 2017. Currently 78 per cent of households have a broadband connection – up from 65 per cent five years ago. The problem being that even if this target is reached, it doesn’t mean all households will be able to access superfast coverage (deemed to be 24Mbps capability). That’s because some premises are simply located too far from the cabinet that provides access to high download speeds.
Technology analyst Michael Armitage at broking house Arden Partners believes that even if 80 per cent of premises get superfast speeds by the year-end, in rural areas where line lengths are inevitably longer than the national average, the figure “will often be as low as 50 per cent”.