Digital connections to new homes in the UK are not as good as it should be so the Government has announced it will introduce legislation which will require all new builds to be connected to fibre networks.
The moves comes after it was revealed that the majority of development are being supplied with connections which are at least part copper.
Now the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Wright, said that although connections are improving it is not sufficient. He revealed that currently the telephony Universal Service Obligation requires only functional internet access which is effectively a dial-up connection.
Improvements have been due to voluntary building sector agreements between Openreach, Virgin Media and GTC. However, some new housing developments are not getting full fibre connectivity, as it is either too expensive for the operator to provide this alone, or because there is no compulsion on developers to provide connectivity.
‘The Government is looking to improve the housing supply in the UK, and has an ambition of building 300,000 new homes a year over the next few years. We will ensure that the ambitions of significantly increasing the housing stock and world class digital infrastructure are aligned. It makes practical sense to ensure that these new developments have future proofed full fibre connectivity wherever possible,’ said Wright.
He is planning new legislation to ensure all new build developments where appropriate are connected with full fibre which offers choice at the retail level for home owners. ‘We will look at what can be done through existing legislation, for example building regulations, or whether new legislation may be required,’ Wright explained.
‘We intend this new legislation to be a backstop provision, designed to ensure that the commercial negotiations between developers and operators, as evidenced by the voluntary agreements, are not affected,’ he explained.
Under the plans there will be a joint obligation on Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review 31 for both digital operators and home developers.
The changes will also address costs. ‘We propose that lower and upper thresholds of cost per premises are applied, recognising that in some cases there are significant costs of building from the edge of the development to the network. We will consult on the detail of this measure in the autumn,’ Wright added.