Broadband operators could use gas and energy networks to deploy UK fibre

Optical fiber
(Image credit: Pixabay)

The government wants to make it easier for broadband operators to use existing utilities infrastructure to deploy fibre cables and speed up the rollout of gigabit connectivity across the UK.

It is estimated that civil works such as digging up roads account for four fifths of the cost of building fibre networks.

If infrastructure builders were able to use assets such as pipes, ducts and masts that power the country’s gas, electricity, water and sewer networks, then this cost could be reduced significantly.

Uk fibre rollout

Legislation that allows broadband operators to access this infrastructure at fair rates already exists but the government is concerned that it is not widely used. It is therefore seeking views from the industry to overhaul the regulations.

Figures from the National Infrastructure Commission suggests the reuse of these assets could reduce the cost of gigabit broadband by £8 billion. Given the estimated expense of nationwide coverage is above £30 billion, this is a significant sum.

“It makes both economic and common sense for firms rolling out gigabit broadband to make use of the infrastructure that already exists across the country,” said Matt Warman, Minister for Digital Infrastructure. “This will help them avoid the high costs and disruption of having to dig or build their own and ultimately benefit consumers.

“We’ve seen progress with improved access to Openreach’s ducts and poles, but other telecoms companies have large networks that are not easily accessible. We want them, and utility companies, to do more to open these up and help speed up getting next-generation broadband to people across the UK.”

The vast majority of the UK’s broadband infrastructure is delivered by fibre the cabinet (FTTC) technology that uses copper for the final few metres of a connection. However Openreach, Virgin Media and ‘altnets’ like Cityfibre, Hyperoptic and Gigaclear are all now investing in ‘full fibre’ networks.

The government itself as adopted a ‘fibre-by-default’ approach to connectivity and wants total coverage by 2025. Both Openreach and the altnets have said they could reach 15 million premises by 2025 if there was a favourable investment climate and could go even further with the right support.

The economic impact of total gigabit broadband coverage could be worth up to £51.4 million over five years to the UK according to Assembly Research.

Steve McCaskill is TechRadar Pro's resident mobile industry expert, covering all aspects of the UK and global news, from operators to service providers and everything in between. He is a former editor of Silicon UK and journalist with over a decade's experience in the technology industry, writing about technology, in particular, telecoms, mobile and sports tech, sports, video games and media. 

Latest in Pro
Isometric demonstrating multi-factor authentication using a mobile device.
NCSC gets influencers to sing the praises of 2FA
Sam Altman and OpenAI
OpenAI is upping its bug bounty rewards as security worries rise
Context Windows
Why are AI context windows important?
BERT
What is BERT, and why should we care?
A person holding out their hand with a digital AI symbol.
AI is booming — but are businesses seeing real impact?
A stylized depiction of a padlocked WiFi symbol sitting in the centre of an interlocking vault.
Dangerous new CoffeeLoader malware executes on your GPU to get past security tools
Latest in News
Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con up-close from app store
Nintendo's new app gave us another look at the Switch 2, and there's something different with the Joy-Con
cheap Nintendo Switch game deals sales
Nintendo didn't anticipate that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was 'going to be the juggernaut' for the Nintendo Switch when it was ported to the console, according to former employees
Three angles of the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M4 laptop above a desk
Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review roundup – should you buy Apple's new lightweight laptop?
Witchbrook
Witchbrook, the life-sim I've been waiting years for, finally has a release window and it's sooner than you think
Amazon Echo Smart Speaker
Amazon is experimenting with renaming Echo speakers to Alexa speakers, and it's about time
Shigeru Miyamoto presents Nintendo Today app
Nintendo Today smartphone app is out now on iOS and Android devices – and here's what it does