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The Government has announced that the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, which aimed to extend geographic 4G mobile (mobile broadband) coverage to 95% of the UK (aggregate) by the end of 2025 (5G also benefits from the new infrastructure), has “achieved its overarching target a year ahead of schedule“. But there’s more work left to do.

The SRN – supported by £501m of public funding and £532m of private investment from operators – involves both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts in certain areas and the demand-led building and sharing of new masts in others between the operators. But the programme actually consists of two main targets, which often gets overlooked.

The first target, which was achieved around the end of last summer (i.e. extending 4G coverage 88% of the UK’s landmass), involved the delivery of industry funded coverage improvements in Partial Not-Spot (PNS) areas (i.e. areas that receive coverage from at least one operator, but not all).

The second target involved tackling Total Not-Spot (TNS) areas by early 2027. Ofcom’s licence obligations commit each individual operator to increase its 4G coverage to 90% of the UK’s landmass by January 2027 – with these individual obligations supporting the overall target of 95% by December 2025.

As part of all this the SRN was intended to provide guaranteed coverage to an additional 280,000 UK premises, 16,000km of roads and boost ‘in car’ coverage on around 45,000 km of road, as well as better indoor coverage for around 1.2 million premises.

Hitting the target early

The good news this morning is that the SRN programme has “achieved its overarching target a year ahead of schedule“, with over 95% of the UK now within range of a 4G mobile signal as a result of all MNOs (EE, Vodafone / Three UK and O2) delivering new infrastructure. The programme has also met its road and premises targets, which were due in January 2027, and delivered more than 50 government-funded mast upgrades as part of the SRN’s Extended Area Service (EAS) project.

The EAS phase of the work focuses on the part of the SRN that sees the government providing a total of £184m from their pot to the Home Office and mobile operators, which is helping to upgrade EAS masts being built as part of the 4G Emergency Services Network (ESN) – these masts previously only connected EE customers and anyone making 999 calls (i.e. all mobile operators can now use these sites).

4G Mobile Coverage (SRN) Progress – 29th June 2025

The programme today said that it is now focusing on addressing the connectivity challenges in more “hard-to-reach areas” of Great Britain that are TNS areas. “We have spent time engaging with local communities and interest groups, especially in Scotland, to understand how best to maximise the benefits of future mobile upgrades,” said the announcement.

As a result of these conversations, the Government and the operators have agreed to “prioritise new mobile infrastructure for areas where it will have the biggest positive impact, primarily where people live, work, or travel, including walking and hiking routes“. This includes parts of the West Highland Way and Munros Ben Lawers and Ben Vorlich where there is no 4G signal at all, yet walkers and tourists regularly need it – especially in emergency situations.

Under the revised plans, while “fewer new masts are planned” across rural Scotland, those that are built will provide new mobile coverage to areas such as Glen Coe, the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, Wester Ross, and several islands including the Isle of Mull, South Uist and Skye. Readers can see an updated MAP of Planned Mast Builds in Scotland on the SRN website.

However, the somewhat low-key announcement (there are no quotes from anybody included and it flew in as a routine update), makes no mention of how much this change impacts the project’s public funding. Mobile network operators, which feel they’ve been doing their part, were previously reported to have been concerned that the government may have been looking to cut costs and thus not reinvest any savings back into mobile connectivity (here).

On the other hand, mobile operators had previously expressed a desire for any saved SRN based public funding to be reinvested to help improve coverage across the UK’s railways, which is very relevant because the government recently unveiled Project Reach – a public-private partnership that will deploy “ultra fast fibre optic cable” across 1,000km of major rail lines to help “eliminate mobile signal blackspots” in tunnels on “key rail routes” up and down the country.

In addition, the Government’s recently published its 10 Year Industrial Strategy, which among other things pledged £41m to help introduce Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband satellite connectivity “on all mainline trains” in order to “significantly improve both the availability and internet data connection speeds for Wi-Fi connected passengers.” The Project Reach announcement appears intended to complement that effort, so perhaps the mobile operators got what they wanted.

Finally, in May 2025, the government stated that a further 50 state-aid funded mast sites in England, Wales and Scotland were being targeted for upgrades by March 2026 (here).

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Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has today revealed the details of their spectrum transfer agreement with Vodafone UK (VodafoneThree), which follows last year’s network sharing deal. This will see VMO2 acquiring 78.8MHz of spectrum for an investment of £343m to “materially enhance” their 4G and 5G mobile (mobile broadband) network.

In case anybody has forgotten, VMO2 and Vodafone signed a key 10-year network sharing agreement back in July 2024 (here), which was necessary in order to correct for some competitive conflicts that might have been created by Vodafone’s recently completed merger with Three UK (i.e. Three had a network sharing agreement with EE, while Vodafone had one with O2).

The deal also stipulated that – upon completion of Vodafone’s merger with Three UK – VMO2 would later acquire spectrum from the newly created VodafoneThree, thus establishing three scaled mobile network operators each with better alignment of their respective spectrum holdings. But the exact details and value of that spectrum deal has, until now, remained unclear.

The spectrum will be partially funded by the minority stake sale in Cornerstone in 2024, with spectrum payments extending beyond 2025 and “deployment occurring over the medium term, starting this year“.

Spectrum Being Acquired by VMO2 from Vodafone UK

• 20MHz of 1400MHz Supplemental Downlink

• 18.8MHz of 2100MHz Frequency Division Duplex

• 20MHz of 2600MHz Time Division Duplex

• 20MHz of 3400MHz Time Division Duplex

Lutz Schüler, CEO of VMO2, said:

“This acquisition of spectrum will not only create greater balance in holdings across the UK’s mobile networks, but for Virgin Media O2 it will allow us to boost coverage and further improve our network quality, building on the significant investment we are already making in our mobile network. We’re committed to giving our customers a reliable mobile experience across the country and this increase in spectrum will help us deliver on that.”

The news bodes well for O2, which in many independent studies has tended to show somewhat of a performance detriment (particularly with respect to data speeds) when compared with Vodafone, Three UK and EE – this is despite the operator now having much greater access to Virgin Media’s national fixed line network.

The extra spectrum should help to boost their network performance and perhaps also improve signal coverage in some locations, which will no doubt be welcomed by the operator’s customers and MVNO partners. But we would have liked a bit more detail on the exact timescale for each band to be deployed (we’ve asked VMO2 and will report back if they provide more info.).

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Mobile operator Vodafone UK has issued an update on their Joint Venture (SatCo) with satellite operator AST SpaceMobile, which is in the process of launching a space-based 2G, 4G and 5G mobile (mobile broadband) service that can connect with regular Smartphones around the world. The first commercial services are expected to launch in 2026.

Just to recap. Over the past few years’ we’ve seen AST conduct several trials of the new platform, including via their prototype 1.5-ton BlueWalker 3 satellite (here) that orbits at an altitude of a little over 500km and features a huge 693-square-foot (64.4-square-meter) phased array antenna (here). The satellite was specifically designed for sending and receiving mobile signals between the space-based platform and regular mobile handsets.

The platform was originally developed with support from Vodafone and thus nobody was surprised to see the pair sign a long-term commercial agreement last year (here), which will run until at least 2034. This will support AST’s efforts toward launching a total of 100 similar satellites (BlueBirds) over the next few years (future models will be larger and more capable).

Last year’s agreement essentially established the framework for Vodafone to offer space-based cellular broadband connectivity in its home markets (e.g. the UK), but at the time we didn’t get a lot of detail about how this would be delivered. The good news today is that the companies have confirmed that their first commercial services are expected to begin in 2026.

According to today’s update, the new joint venture satellite company (SatCo) will be “focused on delivering space-based cellular broadband connectivity” and is to be headquartered in Luxembourg. SatCo’s wholesale offering of Direct-to-Device (DtD) mobile broadband satellite services has already generated expressions of interest from network operators in 21 EU member states, as well as in other European markets.

Margherita Della Valle, CEO of Vodafone, said:

“This is an important initiative for Europe. Our service will ensure all European citizens, businesses, and governments enjoy uninterrupted, ubiquitous mobile broadband connectivity across the whole continent. Europe can take the lead in new direct-to-device mobile broadband technology.”

Abel Avellan, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of AST SpaceMobile, said:

“With SatCo now based in Luxembourg, Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile are strengthening Europe’s position in direct-to-mobile satellite services and advancing digital independence. This joint venture supports European digital sovereignty by creating a unified platform to deliver satellite connectivity across the continent. Together, we are building secure, resilient cellular broadband infrastructure to serve Europe’s connectivity needs—anywhere, anytime.”

The Luxembourg-headquartered venture will also need to deploy a “small network of earth stations” that integrate with operators of existing 4G/5G terrestrial networks, providing secure backhaul links, as well as extended coverage across Europe from the AST SpaceMobile satellite constellation. “This will enable users to switch automatically between space and land-based networks,” said the announcement.

Naturally the new SatCo will be going up against a similar Direct to Cell (DtC) service from Starlink (SpaceX), which is already starting to become operational in the USA and some other countries (note: no agreements have yet been confirmed with UK mobile operators).

Starlink will also have many more satellites, although this is partly mitigated by AST’s advantage of having such a huge phased array antenna for significant coverage. But astronomers are known to be unhappy with the size and brightness of that antenna, which risks causing interference with scientific observations (Starlink has faced similar complaints).

On the other hand, the coverage of this service will still depend upon the SatCo’s ability to get regulatory approval in each country and to build suitable earth stations across their patch. But many regulators, such as Ofcom, are already in the process of introducing new rules to support such services.

The introduction of more competition in this field should hopefully also help to ensure fairer pricing for consumers, governments and businesses. We suspect domestic customers will only need to pay a fairly small additional monthly charge or premium to add such roaming. But we’ve yet to see any solid details on this from the SatCo.

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ISPreview has this morning published our biannual H1 2025 summary of UK fixed broadband coverage, which reveals that “full fibre” (FTTP) ISP networks have grown to reach 78.06% of premises (up from 73.53% in H2 2024) and 87.84% are within reach of “gigabit” 1000Mbps+ speeds (up from 85.87%). Read on to see details for England, Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland…

Just to recap. All the new gigabit-capable (1000Mbps+ or 1Gbps+) network connectivity added during the first half of 2025 has come from Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based networks via Openreach (BT), Nexfibre (Virgin Media), Hyperoptic, CityFibre, Netomnia (Brsk, YouFibre), KCOM, Gigaclear and many other alternative networks (Summary of UK Full Fibre Builds).

The reason why “gigabit” coverage is currently still higher than “full fibre” (FTTP) is down to the millions of premises still covered by Virgin Media’s older Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network, which uses gigabit-capable DOCSIS 3.1 technology via a Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network (there’s a lot of overbuild with FTTP in urban areas).

In addition, most of the progress on gigabit-capable builds seen during 2025 is still down to commercial investment (commercial builds have already delivered the first 80%+ of gigabit cover), often with only a little support from the Government’s various schemes. But the Project Gigabit scheme, and its subsidised rollout contracts with various different suppliers, are having an impact on this, albeit primarily via the hardest to reach premises (e.g. rural) that typically take longer to cover.

H1 2025 Broadband Coverage Figures

Listed below is the latest independent modelling from Thinkbroadband for late June 2025 (H1 – 2025). We should point out that the figure for ‘Under 10Mbps‘ doesn’t include any 4G mobile coverage (we only looked at fixed line services), which plays a part in the official Universal Service Obligation (USO) but isn’t included in TBB’s mapping. Sadly, it’s incredibly difficult to do an accurate model for mobile networks, especially in terms of a specific performance level.

Fixed Broadband Network Availability H1 – 2025

NOTE: It’s very important to remember that Government / political coverage targets, like the previous “85%” for gigabit by 2025, reflect a national average – this can of course be better or worse for some areas (e.g. some counties may achieve higher coverage, while others could be below that).

Take note that each region (Scotland, Wales etc.) may also have its own policy and targets, which will feed into the central UK coverage figure. Furthermore, it’s worth highlighting how much of an impact newer alternative networks (altnets) are having on all this – excluding coverage by Openreach, KCOM (Hull) and Virgin Media.

Altnets were found to have covered 42.26% of the UK with FTTP by the end of H1 2025 (up from 39.38% in H2 2024). This breaks down as 44.56% in England (up from 41.50%), just 18.82% in Wales (up from 16.89%), 33.95% in Scotland (up from 32.05%) and 41.08% in Northern Ireland (up from 39.29%). But the overall coverage improvement delivered from this will be reduced due to overbuild between so many networks, particularly in urban areas.

As stated earlier, this data is a modelled estimate and should be taken with a pinch of salt, not least because it won’t always reflect the very latest real-world position. But it’s still one of the best and most up-to-date gauges that we have for checking against official claims (Ofcom’s own data tends to be several months behind that of TBB’s).

Solutions for Slow Broadband Areas

Finally, those still stuck in sub-10Mbps speed areas will, at least for now, be left with little option but to try harnessing the flawed 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO) via BT (UK-wide) or KCOM (Hull-only). Many of those who have pursued the USO say they were offered a mobile broadband (4G or 5G) connection via EE, but those considered delivered under the USO itself usually get full fibre (FTTP) lines.

However, the reality is that some people will find they live in areas where not even the USO can cover the colossal upgrade costs of getting FTTP (here and here). The previous government was in the process of examining support options for remote premises and had also been preparing to review the broadband USO (here), which may bring some changes in the future (the Labour Party previously called for a 30Mbps USO).

Failing that, consumers could either try waiting to see if the problem gets resolved or consider exploring the option of a LEO satellite service (Starlink is good, if you can afford it and look past the ‘Musk’ factor). We would also recommend that consumers check via Three UK / Vodafone and O2 (VMO2) to see if any of those deliver better 4G or 5G mobile coverage than EE in your area (ideally by conducting your own tests, since official coverage maps are fairly useless) – see our guide to external antennas.

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A new survey of more than 4,347 UK adults with a home broadband ISP contract, which was conducted between Dec 2024 and Jan 2025 by Which?, has claimed that 85% of respondents have experienced at least one “connection issue” in the past year (e.g. slow speeds, connection drop-outs, and router problems). Customers of Sky Broadband and Virgin Media were the worst hit.

The survey reveals that the top issue is still “slow downloads and uploads” (28%), which is confusingly followed by the samey “very slow speeds” (26%), frequent connection drop-outs (22%) and router problems (21%). Furthermore, some 15% said they had also lost internet connectivity for more than an hour and 8% said their connection had dropped for more than a day.

Apparently, Sky Broadband was the worst provider for “slow downloads and uploads“, with some 39% of their customers on the survey claiming that they frequently had problems. On the flip side, some 47% of Plusnet’s customers said they had NOT experienced slow downloads or uploads in the past year.

In addition, Sky Broadband were also found to be the worst provider for “very slow speeds“, with some 37% of their customers claiming to have frequently been affected by this. On the flip side, Zen Internet customers were least likely to suffer slow speeds (54% said they had NOT experienced this problem at all).

However, we aren’t quite sure why Which? opted to ask two questions about essentially the same thing (i.e. “slow downloads and uploads” vs “very slow speeds“) in their survey, which isn’t helped by the fact that the question isn’t well-defined and is highly subjective.

Finally, Virgin Media and Sky’s customers were also found to be the most likely to experience internet outages, with 22% on Virgin Media and 21% on Sky Broadband saying they had “frequently been left without their connection for more than an hour“. But we’ve no way to tell whether this was caused by the ISP or something else within the network, such as a local connectivity problem (router fault, weak WiFi signals etc.).

We should point out that not every person has the necessary skills to correctly identity and diagnose the cause of internet or network connection issues, which tends to result in all such gripes being levelled at the broadband provider. As usual, opinion surveys like this should always be taken with a pinch of salt, especially given the likely small sample sizes for ISP specific results. The fact that we only get partial and sporadic results for just four ISPs certainly doesn’t help.

However, we can speculate that one of the reasons why Sky might be suffering from so many speed issues is because they still have a sizeable base of ADSL and FTTC customers – connection types that often suffered from slow speeds due to signal degradation over distance on older copper lines. Providers with a higher proportion of FTTP customers should be seeing fewer disconnection events and speed issues.

At the same time it’s worth noting that, according to Ofcom, Sky Broadband tends to attract relatively few consumer complaints about their service (here).

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Eyebrows were recently raised after UK network operator Openreach (BT) quoted one home in Scotland over £73,000 to have an FTTP on Demand (FTTPoD) broadband service installed. The high cost of FTTPoD is not a new issue, but in this case a nearby neighbour already had the service and the operator’s fibre even ran directly outside the house.

Just for some context. It’s important not to confuse the normal / native Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service with FTTPoD (or FoD) – the latter is a premium product aimed more at smaller businesses. In a normal native FTTP rollout, Openreach foots the bill to install the optical fibre down your street, but with FTTPoD it’s the customer who chooses to pay for the extremely expensive civil engineering side of that build (desktop quotes for this often run into the tens of thousands).

The advantage of FoD is that it can enable you to get a gigabit FTTP line built right to your property, even if full fibre wasn’t previously planned to be natively deployed into your area. All of this sounds great, except for the high cost of building such infrastructure and the long lead times involved, which make it far too expensive for most ordinary people. Not to mention that it’s awkwardly positioned in an area of the market that is also inhabited by Leased Lines.

Suffice to say that, in recent years, FTTPoD – now somewhat legendary for the high asking price of its desktop quotes – has taken a bit of a backseat. However, a proper engineering survey is usually conducted later, once an order has been formally placed (at cost), in order to find out the correct build cost – this of course may end up being either more or less expensive than the initial desktop quote.

How Much!?

Despite this, we recently came across a particularly unusual situation, even for FTTPoD, with a house (cottage) in the rural Scottish village of Farnell. Openreach had quoted the owner of this property £73,108 via UK ISP Converged to have FTTPoD installed, which is extremely high, albeit perhaps not too unusual for such a location (the high cost of building FTTP in a previously unserved area is often reflected in such estimates).

The problem is that the area was NOT previously unserved. In fact, the neighbouring house, which sat less than 30 metres away on the same road (both were also right next to the road), had previously had the same FTTPoD service installed just 3 years earlier (2022) and for “only” around £14,000. Better yet, the fibre used to reach that property ran right in front of the target house for the £73k install (along the same road).

The Google Streeview screenshot on this article shows the same road setting and, on the left of the road, you can just make out Openreach’s chamber with their fibre in, which runs up to connect the two properties in the background.

Suffice to say that we can see no reason why it would cost £73k to hook up a nearby house and, strictly speaking, Ofcom’s rules do appear to forbid double charging for the majority of such an installation (in this case, it’s also a lot more than ‘double’). Naturally we asked Openreach for some pearls of their wisdom and, although it took a bit of time before they recognised the issue, we did finally get a reply.

A spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview:

“We completely understand how frustrating delays like this can be, and want to get this resolved as quickly as possible. We’re arranging for a specialist fibre engineer to conduct a detailed assessment of the local network to establish exactly which existing fibre routes already run close to [the cottages].

This review will help us determine if the original quote accurately reflects the work required and, depending on the findings, may allow us to identify a more straightforward and cost-effective solution.”

The likelihood is of course that most of this erroneous costing will end up being ironed out in the engineering survey. But the catch is that many customers would balk so hard at the first quote that they almost certainly wouldn’t even think to proceed further and place an order. Mind you, it’s not as if FTTPoD was ever particularly popular, especially now that FTTP is already available to the majority of UK premises and rising.

In any case, we’re now waiting to hear back from Openreach’s engineer to see what the actual cost of delivery might be and plan to update this post again. At the same time, it remains unclear why Openreach’s existing map of the area seems to have been unable to “establish exactly which existing fibre routes already run close to” the property concerned. Particularly since the previous FTTPoD build in the area was so recent.

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Network analyst firm Streetwave has today shared the results from a recent survey they conducted, which tested the coverage and performance of 4G and 5G mobile (broadband) networks – including EE, Three UK, Vodafone and O2 – while travelling along the entirety of the Jubilee Line (London Underground) from Stratford to Stanmore.

The rail line involved in this study has, over the past couple of years, benefitted from significant upgrades as part of Transport for London‘s (TfL) project to extend 4G and 5G mobile signals across the London Underground (i.e. stations, tube trains and tunnels etc.). In the past, the chances of being able to maintain a mobile signal on this line would have been almost impossible, but the situation today is very different.

Streetwave is understood to have taken their portable data collection equipment onboard for just one of these trips, thus the results below should be considered fairly anecdotal, albeit still interesting. The test itself was conducted on 18th June 2025 and started at 10:06am from Stratford station, with the train being partly full during the journey (just outside rush hour).

The train itself was from older 1996 Stock, operated by the London Underground TfL). As usual, all four of the primary mobile operators were measured and their Essential Coverage scores across the journey have been pasted below. Streetwave defines Essential Coverage as being reflective of locations where the network provides users with speeds of above 1Mbps download, 0.5Mbps upload, and below 100ms (milliseconds) of latency (i.e. covering or allowing only the most basic of use cases / needs).

In addition, Streewave also studied each operator’s scores for Acceptable Coverage, which is defined as being a network that can provide users with at least 5Mbps download speeds, 2Mbps upload, and below 40ms latency times. “These are speeds where most mobile use cases including internet browsing, video streaming or conference calls can be performed,” said the company.

Essential Coverage Scores on Jubilee Line

1. Vodafone – 80%
2. EE – 68%
3. Three UK – 59%
4. O2 – 55%

Put another way, the company’s simulated passenger on each network spent the following amount of time WITHOUT a dependable internet connection on the 62-minute journey: Vodafone – 12 minutes, EE – 20 minutes, Three UK – 25 minutes and O2 – 28 minutes.

Acceptable Coverage Scores on Jubilee Line

1. Vodafone – 57%
2. EE – 56%
3. Three UK – 47%
4. O2 – 32%

Clearly, despite all of the operators using the same shared cell sites / distribution points, there are still some fairly big differences in signal reception and Vodafone seems to be the top performing network operator. But it’s important to stress that this is still a very positive outcome, given how we’re talking about a line that runs mostly underground and down very narrow tunnels.

UPDATE 8:46am

Just to add a bit of extra context. The tunnelled section between Westminster and Finchley Road isn’t live with mobile coverage yet (due soon), thus the results above won’t reflect the completed picture of TfL’s project to roll-out a 4G mobile network across the whole route.

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Mobile network operator Vodafone UK has significantly increased the bundled 4G data allowances (mobile broadband) on several of their SIM Only Basics plans for new customers. For example, the cheapest entry-level package will now give you 21GB (GigaBytes) of data for just £7 per month (up from 6GB).

The operator’s Basics plans also come with unlimited UK minutes and texts on a 12-month minimum term. Otherwise, you’ll now get 80GB for £8 (up from 50GB), 90GB for £10 and 100GB for just £12 a month (up from 70GB). Just remember that the price will increase by £1 (monthly) from April 2026.

Take note that Vodafone still make the Basics plans quite hard to find on their website (here’s a direct link) – they don’t even display them on their SIM Only deals page. The Basics plans are designed to be very simplistic and don’t include any support for 5G services (only 4G etc.). 

Vodafone does occasionally change their mobile plans, although they haven’t stated how long the new offers will run.

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The European Commission (EC) recently published their annual 2025 study of broadband coverage in Europe, which reveals how the EU’s fixed gigabit broadband (FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax) and 5G mobile networks compare across all of its 27 countries. We compare this with the United Kingdom below.

The EU’s main target for digital infrastructure, which remains very similar to the UK’s, is for every European household to have access to “high-speed internet” (downloads of 100Mbps+) coverage by the end of 2025 and gigabit (1000Mbps+) connectivity by the end of 2030. The new report, which is largely based on data from last year (mid-2024), is intended to help gauge the progress toward achieving those goals.

The EU’s Broadband and Mobile Targets (“Digital Decade“)

The current vision for 2025 relies on three main strategic objectives:

➤ Gigabit connectivity for all of the main socio-economic drivers;

➤ uninterrupted 5G coverage for all urban areas and major terrestrial transport paths;

➤ access to connectivity offering at least 100 Mbps for all European households.

The ambition of the Digital Decade is that by 2030:

➤ all European households are covered by a Gigabit network (e.g. DOCSIS 3.1 + FTTP);

➤ all populated areas are covered by 5G (at least).

By comparison, the UK’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme currently aims to extend gigabit-capable broadband to reach 99% of UK premises by 2032 (recently delayed from the original goal of 2030). The public funding for this is focused upon aiding the final 10-20% of hardest to reach premises, where commercial deployments may struggle.

According to Ofcom’s latest data to January 2025 (here), some 98% of UK premises can access a 30Mbps+ (“superfast“) connection (up from 97% last year), while 86% (up from 80%) are able to access gigabit broadband (via FTTP and DOCSIS 3.1+) and that falls to 74% (up from 62%) when only looking at “full fibre” FTTP. Take note that, in the UK, DOCSIS 3.1 largely reflects Virgin Media’s urban Hybrid Fibre Coax (cable) network.

As for mobile networks, over 99% of UK premises (outdoor) have access to 4G (unchanged) and between 92-96% of premises can access 5G from at least one operator (up from 85-92%) – falling to just 22-44% in outdoor 5G areas where all four operators exist (up from 16-28%). However, it’s important to stress that the EU’s comparative data below is about 6 months older than Ofcom’s data above.

Overall, the EU is now in a roughly similar sort of place to the United Kingdom, with total FTTP coverage of 69.24% (up from 64% last year), gigabit (VHCN) broadband coverage of 82.49% (up from 78.8%) and 5G population coverage of 94.35% (up from 89.3%). But we do have to remember that quite a few EU states have been building FTTP, at scale, for 5-10 years longer than the UK, although we’re clearly now catching up and even exceeding quite a few countries.

The main focus of the EU’s report is clearly on 5G and gigabit / VHCN (FTTP + DOCSIS 3.1) coverage, with the differences between EU states and the UK becoming much clearer in these areas once we drill down to the individual country level. In both cases, the UK would now reside somewhere around the middle of the tables below.

The other thing to consider is the split between rural and urban coverage. In the UK, some 57% of rural premises have access to a gigabit-capable broadband network, which drops to 55% for FTTP. By comparison, gigabit (VHCN) coverage of rural areas in the EU stands at 61.89%, with FTTP at 58.78%.

The full report contains a lot more data.

Broadband Coverage in Europe 2025 (State of Digital Decade)
https://digital-decade-desi.digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/datasets/desi/charts

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The Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) in North East England, which covers several council areas (Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees), has signed a new deal with digital mapping specialists Inakalum to deploy special kit on local bin lorries (refuse collection trucks) to map local 4G and 5G mobile (broadband) coverage.

The idea of harnessing refuse collection trucks to help map mobile network coverage and data speeds is not a new one. Streetwave have been doing it across a large part of the UK for the past couple of years. But today’s news marks the first time we’ve seen Inakalum adopt a similar approach, which involves sticking Smartphones installed with special monitoring software on top of the vehicles and taking measurements as they go about their routes.

The collected data, which will examine all four of the major mobile networks (EE, O2 and Vodafone / Three UK), will then be used to create the “most detailed and accurate picture yet” of mobile phone coverage across Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton-on-Tees.

The results from this will help the TVCA to both identify any areas of poor reception for future improvement and to provide a new Tees Valley Mobile Coverage Checker, which should help local residents, businesses and public services understand signal quality in their area.

Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, said:

“We’re already delivering on jobs, investment and regeneration — and now we need to go further to tackle digital blackspots that hold back people and businesses.

Whether you’re on a farm in East Cleveland or running a business in Darlington, decent signal shouldn’t be a luxury – it should be the bare minimum.

If we want to build on our potential as a digital powerhouse, we need to make sure everyone is properly connected.”

In addition to bin wagons, the TVCA has the option to expand the surveys using other vehicles — or even survey on foot — to target key locations, events, or rural communities where signal performance is a known issue. Residents and local groups are now being encouraged to get in touch and express an interest if there are specific areas or upcoming events that could benefit from additional mobile signal mapping.

At the time of writing, we don’t know when the first survey will be completed and the new map made available, although it will be interesting to see whether this is able to go beyond previous efforts by similar companies.