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United Kingdom The Internet

England Makes Gigabit Internet a Legal Requirement For New Homes (theverge.com) 50

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amendments to Building Regulations 2010 were announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) on January 6th that mandate new homes constructed in England to be fitted with infrastructure and connections required to achieve gigabit internet connectivity. Connection costs will be capped at £2,000 per home, and developers must still install gigabit-ready infrastructure (including ducts, chambers, and termination points) and the fastest-available connection if they're unable to secure a gigabit connection within the cost cap. The UK government estimates that 98 percent of installations will fall comfortably under that cap, so it's likely been put in place to avoid spiraling chargings in remote, rural areas that need widescale line upgrades. Properties constructed in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland may be exempt from this new legislation as each country sets its own building regulations independently from England.

The new legislation was introduced on December 26th, 2022, following a 12-month technical consultation that indicated around 12 percent of 171,190 new homes constructed in England didn't have gigabit broadband access upon completion. DCMS claims that gigabit broadband is currently available in over 72 percent of UK households and is targeting full nationwide gigabit-capable broadband coverage across the UK by 2030. In order to meet that goal, another law has also been introduced to make it easier to install faster internet connections into existing flats and apartments. Previously, millions of tenants living in the UK's estimated 480,000 multi-dwelling units (MDUs) needed to obtain permission from the landowner to allow a broadband operator to install connection upgrades. Broadband companies estimate that around 40 percent of these requests are ignored by landlords, leaving tenants unable to upgrade their services even if they're unfit for use. Now, the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021 (TILPA) allows broadband providers in England and Wales to seek access rights via court if landlords and land owners don't respond to installation requests within 35 days.
"An additional 2,100 residential buildings a year are estimated to be connected to faster broadband speeds as a result of these new rules, and similar legislation is due to come into force in Scotland later this year," adds the report. "The existing appeals process that allows landlords to refuse access requests will not be affected."
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England Makes Gigabit Internet a Legal Requirement For New Homes

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  • does the phone system there have fiber to node is most places With limited full fiber to the home?

    • by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Monday January 09, 2023 @05:58PM (#63193754) Homepage
      In the main, yes, it does. Not everywhere, but the pace of the roll out has picked up considerably over the last few years with increased deregulation and there are now a LOT of companies besides BT (actually Openreach) now putting fibre into the ground, on pylons, in pipes, or wherever Openreach is targetting 85% of UK addresses with ultrafast fibre by the end of 2026, and seems to be fairly close to being on target to hit that. Other providers/connection schemes should cover a decent slice of the remaining 15% as well.

      In terms of technology makeup, FTTC is fairly rapidly approaching ubiquity in all but the most rural areas, and FTTP availability is increasing fast as well, but mostly in high population density or new build areas. 4G/5G or other wireless tech is often used for filling in hardwire notspots, which isn't perfect, but for most consumers it's more than ample for typical streaming media and Internet use. Ironically, there are some fairly significant inner city areas that don't even have FTTC yet, but rural broadband schemes have given some very isolated farms heavily subsidised broadband speeds ranging from from 100Mb/s up to 1Gb/s - go figure!
      • Bizarrely in the UK it even seems cheaper to have FTTP than FTTC.

        I had FTTC for several years for my broadband and was paying about £20 per month (about $24) to rent the copper connection to my house. I few months ago I switched over to FTTP and while there was a £100 installation fee there is strangely no "fibre rental charge". The cost of my broadband went up slightly, but I'm still saving north of £200 per year for a faster connection (115/20 Mbit - up to 1Gbit if I pay more).

        I un

      • Yes, Openreach has been shaken into action somewhat by other players putting fibre in. I think we can be fairly sure they'd never have bothered otherwise. They've put in a load of FTTC around where I live in the last few months too. Some of the telegraph poles _say_ they have fibre on them, although I'm sceptical if it really is.

        I live on the same street as the local telephone exchange. I can't get fibre (from anyone). The best I can get is 60meg ADSL - which costs about £25/month (or I could get cabl

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday January 09, 2023 @05:17PM (#63193642)

    will cable with up 50 MEG up count for this?
    there best plan called Fibre (but seems to have cable docsis speeds)
    1130Mbps average download speed
    52Mbps average upload speed

  • by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Monday January 09, 2023 @05:19PM (#63193648)
    Then we're all off to belarusianpiratebay.org.by to enforce fair copyright terms.
  • Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Monday January 09, 2023 @05:57PM (#63193750)

    Would like to see what the regulation covers regarding the telecoms side of this - sure, the property developers may be under a legal obligation to provide the physical infrastructure, but theres a hefty reliance here on BT having the capacity (in more ways than one) up stream.

    A lot of people in the UK technically "have access" to high speed fibre broadband, in that their local exchange offers it, but cant access it because either the exchange is at capacity or the exchange is at capacity for the LLU provider the customer has chosen.

    For most local terminations (the boxes by the side of the road), as much as 50% of the capacity in there is reserved for BT use and BT use only - so your exchange may have capacity, and the box may have capacity, but as you are using a LLU, you might not get a connection - if you switch to BT, magically capacity becomes available.

  • Why is this a thing? You can already get affordable broadband via Bill Gates 5G wireless broadband, which is not going away anytime soon. Why run unnecessary copper cables or fiber? Waste of natural resources.

    • Well, I signed up for 5G Home Broadband (deals are indeed now cheap in the UK) because the ISP's 5G checker map said it was available at my postcode. What the checker didn't say was that I live at the bottom of a hill that blocks off the 5G signal from the only 5G mast in my small town. Managed to get 10 Mbits/sec down, so had to cancel it during the 14-day cool off period.

      I've signed up for a different ISP because they had a cheap FTTP offer instead (£25/month for 500 Mbits/sec down+up), only

  • with 650Mbps of it dedicated to gov surveillance gear.
  • I was just going to post "What a complete joke!" and leave it at that, but...

    Can we have solar panels and rainwater capture first? I get that FAST internet is cool and relatively cheap to install but this is not a win. It's a fluffy "we've actually managed to do something" by a crippled lame duck government.

    I have found that 40Mbps is typically perfectly adequate for a normal family of four, one of whom (i.e. me) is a HEAVY data user with a lot of data in the cloud and elsewhere. I don't run my own server

    • by ledow ( 319597 )

      They can offer this because there basically are almost no "new homes", and by the time they arrive they'll be the obligation of a replacement government.

      Also, it's really easy to just drop in a fibre line when you build a house or even an entire estate. Everything else you mention requires significant investment and would just be removed from the legislation (if it's not already had that done by the opposition in previous years).

      I do 1Tb a month, and I used to do that on 4G for years (I only stopped becaus

  • ...will be to prevent the construction of any new homes in rural areas, or even some areas of existing metros.

  • Never happen in the US because this is a capitalist society.

    If we can offer 1/10 that at 75% the price of 1Gb, then you will think you are getting a deal.

"I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes." -- Dennie van Tassel

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