Mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012:
Broadband take-up estimates for every UK postcode
Prepared by: Laura Kell
Date: 20 June 2013
Version: 1.1
Point Topic Ltd 73 Farringdon Road
London EC1M 3JQ, UK Tel. +44 (0) 20 3301 3305
Email [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 2 of 16
Contents
1. Introduction 3
2. The broadband market at the end of December 2012 4
2.1 Standard versus superfast lines 4
2.2 Consumer versus business lines Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.3 Standard broadband lines 6
3. Ofcom take-up figures for UK counties 6
4. Measuring the availability of services across the UK 8
5. Calculating take-up in every UK postcode 10
6. Broadband take-up in the UK 11
7. Operator market share across the UK 14
8. Conclusions 16
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 3 of 16
1. Introduction
Every six months, Point Topic estimates broadband take-up in every postcode in the UK.
We look at the expected market share of every major operator for consumers and businesses. We
estimate take-up of different fixed broadband technologies, and include estimates of DSL lines sold
through BT Wholesale and through LLU operators.
We understand patterns in broadband take-up across the country. This allows us to identify areas
where take-up is lower than we would expect, and where operators should expect to see significant
headroom.
This document describes our model of broadband take-up at the end of December 2012 and some of
the key outputs. If you have any questions, or if you would like to access our full database of
broadband availability and take-up in every UK postcode, please get in touch.
mailto:[email protected]?subject=Point%20Topic's%20Broadband%20Geography%20datasets
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 4 of 16
2. The broadband market at the end of December 2012
At the end of December 2012, Point Topic reported 21.85 million broadband lines across the UK.
This included 19.97 million consumer lines and 1.88 million business lines. The full market statistics
are published within Point Topic’s UK Plus service and are available for subscribers to download.
2.1 Standard versus superfast lines
At the end of December 2012, Point Topic estimated that 3.4 million UK broadband lines were
superfast connections, offering download speeds of 25Mbps or above. This represents 15% of the
total broadband customer base.
Figure 1: superfast broadband lines as a percentage of all UK broadband lines, 31 December 2012
The combined total of BT Retail and Virgin Media’s superfast broadband lines stood at around 3.23m
at the end of Q4 2012. Adding in an estimated 115,000 lines on the Openreach network resold by
ISPs other than BT Retail, plus an estimated 18,400 FTTx lines provided by alternative network
operators and Kingston upon Hull’s incumbent operator KC, takes the grand superfast total to well
over three million and growing rapidly.
2.2 Consumer versus business lines
Sourcing accurate numbers for the split of residential and business subscriber lines is very difficult,
as operators rarely report these figures.
At the end of December 2012, Point Topic estimated that 8.6% of the total broadband market served
businesses. Business market share for major operators is shown below.
http://point-topic.com/services/uk-plus/
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 5 of 16
Figure 2: superfast broadband lines market share, 31 December 2012
Figure 3: estimated consumer and business split for major operators, 31 December 2012
Broadband business lines are defined as broadband lines to business premises. Broadband lines to
home-based businesses are included as consumer lines, not as business ones.
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 6 of 16
2.3 Standard broadband lines
At the end of December 2012, Point Topic estimated that there were a total of 18.49 million
standard broadband lines in the UK. The number of standard broadband lines in the UK is decreasing
as superfast subscriber numbers grow.
Focusing on consumer standard broadband lines, Point Topic estimates that at the end of December
2012 BT Retail had 28% of the consumer standard broadband market. Full market shares for the
major operators are shown below.
Totals for Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and other operators include both on-net and off-net services
provided.
Figure 4: standard broadband retail market share, 30 June 2012
3. Ofcom take-up figures for UK counties
In November 2012, Ofcom published its analysis of the UK broadband market in June 2012 – The UK
Communications Infrastructure Report. This report and the accompanying datasets provided the
most comprehensive view of broadband take-up ever published by the regulator.
Ofcom reported take-up of standard and superfast broadband in every county within the UK. The
fixed broadband take-up data was based on the total number of LLU/DSL lines and Virgin Docsis
lines. It does not include business lines that have bought a dedicated business service, but it does
include any business that uses a service on a DSL line.
The take-up percentages were calculated over a denominator of the total number of households,
which came from the Post Office database of postcodes and delivery points.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/other/telecoms-research/broadband-speeds/infrastructure-report-2012/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=infrastructurehttp://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/other/telecoms-research/broadband-speeds/infrastructure-report-2012/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=infrastructure
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 7 of 16
Figure 5: Ofcom total broadband take-up including superfast by UK county
Since our UK Plus statistics include a more comprehensive review of subscriber lines for all minor
operators (as well as the major operators tracked by Ofcom) and estimates for business lines, we
have weighted the published Ofcom figures so that they reflect our UK totals.
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 8 of 16
Point Topic uses this dataset as the basis of our detailed estimates of broadband take-up in every
postcode in the UK.
The first job is to adjust the take-up figures so that they reflect the broadband market at the end of
December 2012. The biggest growth between June and December 2012 was in superfast subscriber
numbers. To estimate the superfast subscriber increase in every county, we take into account:
How much has superfast availability grown between June and December 2012?
What was the headroom for superfast services, given subscriber numbers reported in June
and availability at the end of 2012?
What is the propensity for people in the county to take-up superfast services?
Given that we know the absolute growth in subscribers in the second half of 2012, we then use the
headroom and propensity to estimate the increase in take-up in every county.
Standard subscriber growth is simply distributed by county according to the headroom for growth in
each county.
4. Measuring the availability of services across the UK
Our objective now is to estimate a more detailed map of broadband take-up within the UK, including
operator splits and estimates for consumer and business lines.
Of course, broadband take-up is influenced by the availability of services within an area. To produce
our detailed maps of broadband take-up across the UK, we consider the availability of services
within every postcode in the UK.
Operator subscriber lines are only allocated to areas where services are available.
BT Exchange locations
To map the availability of broadband across the UK, it is essential to have an understanding of the
locations and boundaries of BT’s exchanges. Whilst the location of the exchanges is published, BT is
yet to provide a publically available source of data for the boundaries of exchanges across the UK.
Point Topic has therefore modelled the likely boundary of exchanges. Our estimates have been
shown to be 87% accurate, with the greatest inaccuracy lying on the boundaries of exchanges and
with the greatest accuracy in rural areas.
Our approach assumes that:
• An imaginary line connecting any two neighbouring exchanges will be bisected at a right
angle by an exchange boundary.
• The exchange boundary will be exactly midway between the two exchanges.
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 9 of 16
Figure 6: Voronoi tessellation is
used to estimate the KCOM and BT
exchange boundaries
We use the same approach to estimate the boundaries of KCOM Group exchanges within the UK. In
this way, every postcode in the UK is allocated to a BT or KCOM exchange.
LLU presence within exchanges
Data is available to say which exchanges have been unbundled for LLU operators. Operators release
data on which exchanges have been unbundled for LLU operators. We can use this data to calculate
the number of premises passed by operators within the UK. We use this approach to calculate the
on-net presence of Sky, TalkTalk, O2, Entanet, NowNet and Zen Internet (the latter three operators
are grouped together within a category Other).
Off-net lines sold by each of these operators are then assumed to fall outside of their LLU footprint.
Note that Orange (now providing broadband services through EE) subscribers are distributed across
the whole of the BT exchange footprint.
Virgin Media coverage area
Point Topic’s Broadband Layer also includes an estimate for the Virgin Media coverage area.
From published data, we know the overall franchise area for Virgin Media and the total number of
UK homes passed by their deployment (13.2m). Our first model for the Virgin Media deployment
area looks at the most likely distribution of these homes within the franchise area, based on a
commercial deployment model which selects the most revenue dense areas within the franchise
area.
This first model is then refined with actual speed test data supplied by Point Topic’s partner,
Thinkbroadband. This data is used to re-calibrate our commercial deployment model and estimate
the likely coverage area of Virgin Media’s cable services.
This model has been shown to be 85% accurate when compared to unpublished sources for their
actual deployment.
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 10 of 16
Figure 7: modelling the Virgin Media coverage area
BT Fibre enabled exchanges
BT publishes their fibre enabled exchanges on their website. Using our exchange boundaries, we can
therefore estimate the coverage area of BT’s fibre services.
We also include FTTx services offered by Sky, TalkTalk and other operators through the BT fibre
network.
Alternative network FTTx coverage
Through our UK Plus service, Point Topic has established strong contacts with smaller providers of
FTTx services. Using this research, we are also able to map the coverage of these operators within
the UK.
5. Calculating take-up in every UK postcode
We now have the following inputs for our model of broadband take-up in every UK postcode:
From the Ofcom published datasets, we know the take-up of standard and superfast
broadband services across the counties in the UK.
From Point Topic’s own research programmes, we know the total consumer and business
subscriber numbers for all major and smaller operators within the UK and their coverage
areas.
From our surveys, we understand the likely take-up of broadband by different types of
households and businesses within the UK.
From our research, we know which operators are active in which exchange and which
exchanges have been enabled for FTTx services.
We also have an estimate of Virgin Media’s coverage layer.
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 11 of 16
We use these inputs to estimate the number of consumer and business subscribers for each
operator in every UK exchange. The process for estimating operator market share in each exchange
is as follows:
1. Calculate the number of premises passed by each operator within an exchange. Virgin
Media will not of course pass all premises within an exchange.
2. Estimate the expected number of broadband lines within the coverage area of each
operator within the county. This is based on the likelihood that the premises passed will
take-up broadband services.
3. Model One – distribute total operator lines for the UK by exchange according to the
likely take-up within the coverage area of each operator.
4. Model Two – adjust the distribution of operator lines so that the total number of
subscribers for each operator is as close as possible to the estimated county figures for
UK take-up.
We use this methodology to estimate the numbers of consumer and business, standard and
superfast lines for every operator in every UK exchange.
Operator subscriber lines are then distributed across every postcode within an exchange, based on
the expected take-up of broadband within the coverage area for that operator (see Section 8).
6. Broadband take-up in the UK
Point Topic provides its subscribers with full databases of broadband availability and take-up across
the UK. Data is not restricted by NDA, and can therefore be used much more freely than other data
sources.
Below we show a map of broadband take-up in every lower super output area (LSOA) across the UK
– on the next page we map superfast broadband take-up at the same level of geography.
Take-up of superfast broadband reflects the deployment to date. There is significant overlap
between the superfast networks of the two major providers – BT and Virgin Media – and coverage
focuses primarily on dense urban areas. There have been huge gains in superfast subscriber
numbers, but these remain concentrated in the urban areas where both operators are deploying.
An exception is Northern Ireland, and adoption rates here are encouraging for operators who will be
expanding superfast services into the large semi-urban and rural areas which will be addressed by
the BDUK projects. But whilst superfast adoption in Northern Ireland is high, total take-up of services
remain low compared to the rest of the UK. In large areas of Wales and Scotland, broadband
adoption is also much lower than the UK average – although these areas are yet to see a major
expansion of their superfast networks.
The barriers to broadband adoption – not just physical availability but also the desire and financial
ability of people to take-up services – will remain the biggest challenge for the UK government in the
future.
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 12 of 16
Figure 8: total broadband take-up (lines over total premises, LSOA). Source – Point Topic
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 13 of 16
Figure 9: superfast broadband take-up (lines over total premises, LSOA). Source – Point Topic
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 14 of 16
7. Operator market share across the UK
Our maps allow us to evaluate the expected market share of operators within any UK postcode. In
this section, we look at national and regional operator market shares.
Figure 10: retail market share for operators by country. Source – Point Topic
Figure 11: retail market share for operators by region. Source – Point Topic
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 15 of 16
We can make comparisons with our last published dataset to estimate where operators have gained
and lost market share between June and December 2012. There will be many reasons for the shifts
in market share between operators in different regions, but the biggest change in the period has
been the growth of superfast subscriber numbers.
BT Retail seems to be gaining most of its market share in the South West, East of England and South
East. This is particularly at the expense of Virgin Media, although other operators are experiencing
loses.
BT Retail has lost most market share in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Sky and Virgin Media both
appear to have gained customers in these countries. In Northern Ireland, BT’s fibre deployment has
been active for some time. It seems that after an initial influx of subscribers, other operators are
now starting to catch-up.
Sky’s biggest gains have been in London, where it appears to have taken market share from BT. In
the North East, Virgin Media is gaining market share at the expense of both Sky and TalkTalk.
TalkTalk has gained its biggest market share in Northern Ireland and Wales, in both cases it appears
at the expense of BT.
Area BT Retail Virgin Media
Sky TalkTalk Other
South West 4% -1% -1% -2% 0%
East of England 4% -2% 0% -1% 0%
South East 2% -2% 1% 0% 0%
Yorkshire and The Humber 1% -1% 0% -1% 0%
North East 1% 3% -2% -2% 0%
East Midlands 1% 0% 0% -1% 1%
North West 0% 1% 0% -1% -1%
West Midlands -1% 0% 1% 0% 0%
London -2% 1% 2% 0% -1%
Wales -3% 1% 0% 1% 1%
Scotland -4% 2% 2% 0% 0%
Northern Ireland -6% 2% 2% 2% 1%
Figure 12: changes in retail market share for operators by region, June to December 2012. Source –
Point Topic
Point Topic – mapping broadband in the UK – Q4 2012
Page 16 of 16
8. Conclusions
Point Topic believes that its maps of broadband take-up in the UK offer the most comprehensive
picture of the competitive broadband landscape available.
We are particularly interested to monitor the take-up of superfast broadband as it becomes more
prolific – for example once Openreach has passed more homes with FTTx than Virgin Media has with
Docsis 3, will market shares change as a result?
Take-up of broadband is not just about the availability of services. It also needs the desire and
financial ability of local populations to adopt broadband. In order to fully realise the objectives of its
digital policy, the UK government needs to focus not only on making services available, but
encouraging take-up from all members of its population. The future digital divide will not be an issue
of provision – it will be an issue of economics.
