Autumn UK Budget 2024 Commits £500m to Broadband and Mobile Upgrades

The new Chancellor of the Labour Government, Rachel Reeves MP, has today announced her first Autumn 2024 Budget and confirmed that she would commit “over £500m of funding next year” for “improving reliable fast broadband and mobile coverage across our country, including in rural areas“.

Just to recap. The previous Government had two headline investment programmes for improving broadband and mobile. The first one was the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, which aims to boost geographic 4G mobile coverage to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025.

NOTE: At present, 71% of the UK can already access a “full fibre” (FTTP/B) network (here), rising to 85% for “gigabit-capable broadband” (FTTP/B + Hybrid Fibre Coax). Elsewhere, geographic 4G mobile coverage stands at around 88% (here).

The second was the £5bn Project Gigabit scheme (around £2bn of this has yet to be used), which succeeded in making 1Gbps+ broadband speeds available to at least 85% of UK premises (this has already been achieved) and now aims to deliver “nationwide” (c.99%) coverage by 2030. In addition, they also set a target for “all populated areas to be covered by a ‘standalone’ 5G (5G-plus) [network] by 2030“ (here).

Since the last budget we’ve had a change of Government and the new Labour-led administration has broadly continued to support those programmes by making a “renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030” (here). But so far, most of their announcements have largely just taken credit for contracts and changes that were already in the works before they came to power (example here, here and here).

The exception has been the new push to reform planning laws (here and here), which may or may not produce a clear benefit for digital network builders (details have yet to be fully revealed). Suffice to say that all eyes were on today’s autumn 2024 budget to see what sort of changes, if any, the new government might make on the telecoms and digital infrastructure front.

Rachel Reeves MP, UK Chancellor, said:

“With over £500 million of funding next year, my right honourable friend for science, technology and innovation secretary will continue to drive progress in improving reliable fast broadband and mobile coverage across our country, including in rural areas.”

At the time of writing, the official budget documents have yet to be published, which means that we don’t yet have the details on what this actually reflects. But on the surface, it sounds a lot like the level of spending that we would have expected to see under the previously committed funding via Project Gigabit and the SRN. However, it’s frustrating when vague terms like “fast broadband“, instead of “gigabit broadband“, are used, which leaves the gate open to speculation about differing performance targets.

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