UK fibre rollout gains ground on European counterparts

Fri, 21/04/2023 - 13:39
FTTH data

The FTTH Council Europe estimates that the UK’s saw 4.2m premises added to its fibre footprint between September 2021 and September 2022, more than any of its European counterparts.

The UK also ranked second by percentage of market growth with +51 per cent, behind Belgium in first (+ 60 per cent).

The report reads: “The UK is accelerating extremely rapidly. Full fibre coverage had reached 42 per cent of UK homes, or around 12.4 million by September 2022.”

However, the UK still has some catching up to do as 21 of the 28 countries ranked have already addressed 50 per cent of their premises with fibre. By this metric, the UK still lags in 22nd with 42 per cent.

The UK also lags by way of subscribers, ranking 22nd with just 11.1 per cent subscription rate. It is making ground up here though, having added 1.5 million subscribers since September 2018, second highest behind France.

The Market Panorama ranks the UK second when ranking nations with the most work left to do, just behind Germany. At time of recording, the UK still had 17.1 million households to address. 

It also ranked second when looking at households without a fibre subscription, with 26 million yet to take up the service.