Rural Internet: Bridging the fibre gap with wireless

Some 95 per cent of the UK should have superfast broadband coverage by late next year. At least that’s the government’s plan. However, while debate rages about when and whether it will happen and the merits of offering fibre to the cabinet rather than fibre to the home, it’s clear that a guaranteed rollout of fibre to the remaining five per cent is not going to happen. For this segment, it now seems likely that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme will abandon the supply side approach (everyone gets connectivity wherever they are) in favour of a broadband universal service obligation. In other words – a household or business will need to request service rather than expect it. How, when and where this happens, and who pays, remain to be seen.

Fibre is nevertheless making its way into some markets suppliers might see as uneconomic to serve on their own – via not-for-profit groups or community broadband initiatives such as Northamptonshire-based Tove Valley Broadband or Broadband for the Rural North. Both want faster broadband in homes, schools and businesses, and have decided that it may be cheaper, easier or quicker to do some or all of the rollout themselves, or in partnership with experts and (if they’re lucky) with some government funding.