Broadband Provision in Wiltshire October 2010 Maggie Rae, Director of Public Health and Wellbeing, County Hall, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BA14 8JD Report Author: Dr Sally Hunter Corporate Research Team Wiltshire Council [email protected] Executive summary Introduction and background Digital technology is at the heart of today’s society, with the significance of internet access for a wide range of social, economic, educational and civic purposes continuously increasing. All telephone exchanges in Wiltshire are enabled to provide a broadband internet service, but the broadband speeds attainable vary widely throughout the county. Contrasts in the quality and speed of broadband provision are a national issue and two central government programmes – the Universal Service Commitment (USC) and Final Third – have been established to ensure, respectively, provision of speeds of at least 2mbps1 in the shorter term and access to ‘next generation’, super-fast broadband services in areas the market would not reach (the ‘final third’ of the country) in the longer term. Broadband Delivery UK has been established within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as the delivery vehicle for these programmes. This research project has been carried out to provide an evidence base describing broadband provision in Wiltshire, with particular reference to the USC and Final Third programmes. Exchanges providing broadband services in Wiltshire There are 106 exchanges providing broadband services in Wiltshire, 85 located within the county and 21 located outside and providing services to areas around the county boundary. The numbers of premises served by each exchange and the services offered vary widely, with exchanges in urban areas serving greater numbers of premises and generally offering more services. Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) services, enabling higher levels of local competition, are available through 18 exchanges in Wiltshire, covering around 60% of residential premises. BT’s ‘high speed’ broadband product (Wholesale Broadband Connect), offering download speeds of up to 24mbps and upload speeds of up to 2.5mbps, is currently available through four exchanges in Trowbridge, Salisbury, Chippenham and Devizes. ‘Next generation’ broadband services, enabling super-fast broadband services by replacing copper telephone lines with fibre-optic cable, are currently available to only around 34% of households in Wiltshire through Virgin Media’s cable service. They will also be available through BT’s Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) roll- out in Trowbridge and Chippenham by end 2010 and Calne by end 2011. Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) business broadband services, enabling uploading much faster than standard connections, are available through nine exchanges in Wiltshire, typically those serving the largest number of premises, and Ethernet business services are available through the four exchanges in Trowbridge, Salisbury, Chippenham and Devizes. Variability in broadband download speeds The potential broadband download speeds achievable through the BT network in Wiltshire have been mapped to produce an overall picture of standard (i.e. not next generation) broadband provision in the county2. The highest speeds available are centred on the exchanges in the towns and some villages with large, predominantly rural 1 Megabits per second. 2 Based on data collected from the BT online postcode checker between Sept and Nov 2009. areas in between experiencing significantly lower speeds. The variation in speeds can be summarised as follows: • Maximum speeds of 8 to 9mbps (at the time of data collection) available only in the centres of Trowbridge, Salisbury, Chippenham and Devizes in an area comprising around 0.2% of the geographic area of the county and containing 6% of households and 18% of businesses. • The highest proportion of households (62%) and businesses (52%) are located within approximately 14% of the county that has been mapped as having potential download speeds of between 5mbps and 8mbps. • The largest geographic area of the county (46%), containing around 26% of households and 23% of businesses, is mapped as having potential download speeds of 2 to 5mbps. • Around 40% of the county, an area containing 5% of households and 7% of businesses, has potential broadband speeds of below 2mbps, the USC minimum level. Mosaic lifestyle classification data for households in the zones outlined above reveals that the zone with the lowest speeds has the highest proportion of households in rural isolation, and also the highest proportion in the wealthier lifestyle groups. The zone with the fastest speeds has the highest proportion of young city dwellers and also the highest proportion in the lower income groups. These data furthermore suggest that while the majority of rural communities are reasonably served when it comes to broadband, with exchanges located in a number of villages, around 20% of households in rural isolation are expected to have broadband speeds of below 2mbps compared to around 5% for the county as a whole. A number of locations within the area identified as having speeds below 2mbps are further described as being “very unlikely to receive a fixed 256kbps3 or 512kbps service due to the long length of the line”; around 1% of households in the county fall into this category. Profiles of areas below the USC level As an aid to prioritisation, the zone identified as having download speeds of below 2mbps has been sub-divided into 68 profile areas. The number of households within these profile areas ranges from fewer than 10 to over 1,000 and the number of businesses from fewer than five to around 100. Mean potential download speeds within these areas range from 0.4mbps to 1.8mbps, with the most commonly reported speeds varying from 0.25 to 1.5mbps. The number of postcodes within each area described as being “very unlikely to receive a fixed 256kbps or 512kbps service due to the long length of the line” ranges from zero to 45. Some 70% of postcodes falling into this category are located within only 12 of the 68 profile areas and 85% are within 19 areas. Broadband characteristics of Wiltshire’s market towns The highest standard potential download speeds of 9mbps are available in the major urban centres of Salisbury, Trowbridge, Chippenham and Devizes. The most commonly 3 Kilobits per second. quoted download speed for postcodes in Salisbury, Trowbridge and Devizes was 9mbps, but only 6mbps for Chippenham. For the other market towns, the most commonly quoted and maximum download speed was 6.5mbps. Mean quoted potential download speeds range from 5.3mbps in Malmesbury to 6.6mbps in Devizes. Next generation services are currently available in nine of the 21 market towns, and will also be available in Chippenham by the end of 2010 and Calne by end 2011. Survey of measured broadband speeds The broadband speeds described in this report are estimated potential maximum download speeds for a given postcode on the BT online postcode checker. The difference between these speeds and the actual speeds experienced by a particular household has been examined in an online survey which asked Wiltshire residents to test their speeds and report the results. The average tested standard broadband download speed reported in this survey was 2.8mbps, with the most commonly reported speeds being around 0.5mbps and 1mbps. This average speed is low compared to national figures obtained by Ofcom, showing an average tested download speed of 4.1mbps. Around 30% of survey respondents used BT as their Internet Service Provider (ISP), a much higher figure than for any other ISP. The average download speed for all standard broadband ISPs was around 2mbps to 3mbps, while the average download speed reported by users of Virgin Media’s next generation cable service was 9mbps. Around 90% of survey respondents reported using the internet for personal browsing and around 60% of Wiltshire Council employees and 45% of other Wiltshire residents reported using the internet to work from home. Around 10% of respondents also reported using the internet to run a business from home. A comparison of the standard broadband download speeds reported in the survey with quoted BT data for the postcode shows that the reported measured speeds are an average of 1.4mbps below the BT postcode estimates, although with a high degree of variability. Comparison of speeds within the four mapped speed zones showed an average tested speed of around 1mbps within the zone mapped as having speeds of below 2mbps. The average tested speed reported within the zone mapped as having speeds of between 2mbps and 5mbps was around 2mbps, with around 60% of survey responses from within this zone reporting speeds below this level. Within the two zones mapped as having the highest potential download speeds (5 to 8mbps and greater than 8mbps), the average reported tested speed was around 4mbps. 3G coverage in Wiltshire A series of 3G coverage maps by mobile operator was produced by Ofcom in 2009, based on theoretical predictions and giving an indication of areas where it is possible to make and receive calls over a 3G network, rather than access higher data rate services. These maps indicate that the north and west of Wiltshire and the area around Salisbury are well served by multiple 3G networks, but that a band exists, running approximately north-east to south-west through the county, where coverage is absent or provided by a limited number of suppliers. Summary of current situation with respect to USC and Final Third benchmarks At the present time around 40% of the geographic area of the county appears to have potential broadband download speeds of below 2mbps – the USC minimum level. This area contains around 5% of households and around 7% of businesses. Within this area there are a number of postcodes that are described as being very unlikely to receive a fixed 256 or 512kbps service due to the long length of the line, with around 1% of households in the county falling into this category of particularly poor service.