'Superfast broadband' now provided to 97 per cent of UK premises

Target of reaching 98 per cent of UK premises could be achieved by the end of 2020

Superfast broadband network with speeds of at least 24Mbps should now be available to 97 per cent of the premises in the UK - parts of London, such as some roads in Forest Hill, nevertheless remain unconnected.

That's according to Margot James MP, Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, who made the claim last week during a debate in the House of Commons.

The event was held to discuss the issue of providing superfast broadband coverage to people living in rural areas.

"The government's superfast broadband programme has met its target and is now providing superfast coverage to 97 per cent of premises," said Margot James.

She continued: ""In addition, we have just launched the rural gigabit connectivity programme, with £200 million of funding, to begin to deliver even faster, gigabit speeds to the most remote and rural parts of the UK."

The announcement came as a surprise for many as the Building Digital UK (BDUK) programme officials had earlier said that they expected the 97 per cent figure to be hit around March 2020.

As that goal has been achieved, it is now expected that the target of reaching around 98 per cent of the UK premises could be achieved by the end of the next year.

Not everywhere in the UK currently has high-speed internet yet, though. Last year, the government announced that it planned to make 10Mbps broadband a minimum legal right via the Universal Service Obligation (USO) programme. The USO, which comes into effect later this year, will make internet service providers legally bounded to provide at least a 10Mbps connection to anyone who asks for it.

There are still around 3.8 per cent of people in the UK (mostly rural communities) forced to use ADSL broadband that doesn't meet the USO standard.

And 0.7 per cent of the country has to endure speeds of less than 2Mbps on day-to-day basis.

Currently around 620,000 premises in the country come within the USO bracket, but the figure is now falling with constant progress towards "superfast" fibre-to-the-cabinet coverage, with BT's infrastructure arm Openreach being whipped to speed-up its roll-out of fibre-to-the-home.

Indeed, the government has also said that it is committed to provide nationwide coverage of ultrafast "full fibre" broadband networks by 2033.

So far, Openreach claims that it will reach three million premises by the end of 2020, and has upped its targets for 2025.