New analysis published by High Speed 2 Ltd, which is a non-departmental public body that is wholly funded by the UK Government’s Department for Transport (DfT), has claimed that the HS2 rail project could help “thousands of properties” across 538 postcodes to gain access to “ultrafast broadband speeds” and better mobile connectivity.
According to the blurb, the new railway – which will link London and Birmingham – runs through largely rural areas of Buckinghamshire, West Northants, Warwickshire and Staffordshire, many of which are said to “lag behind the rest of the UK in terms of data speed and mobile coverage.” The project suggests this is because the “high cost of installing the direct fibre connections” in such areas makes it unviable for serving the “small number of potential customers.”
However, it has long been proposed that HS2 would sell mobile and broadband providers access to its trackside network, which reflects spare capacity in the fibre optic cabling and telecoms masts that are being built to support the railway’s own signalling and telecoms needs.
The scale of the opportunity is underlined in a new analysis of the latest Ofcom data commissioned by HS2, which is said to have identified more than 538 postcodes within 5km of the HS2 route that currently do not have access to ‘ultrafast’ speeds of more than 100Mbps. This includes 209 postcodes that currently don’t even have access to ‘decent’ broadband speeds (i.e. 10Mbps+ downloads – the USO level).
Similarly, the next stage of HS2’s construction, which aims to free up space on the west coast mainline into Euston for more local services, is expected to deploy 80 trackside telecoms masts to provide signalling for the trains which will travel at speeds of up to 360km/h. But these could also be used to boost local 5G mobile coverage, with 15 postcodes along the route currently unable to receive a reliable 5G signal (this really is not very big).
Rail Minister, Lord Hendy, said:
“Investment in our transport infrastructure can boost opportunities and drive economic growth in every part of our country.
This scheme will have a positive impact on local areas for generations to come, providing connectivity that will create new opportunities for people and businesses to thrive.”
However, the announcement is somewhat rehashing a very old argument (here and here), and it’s worth noting that the talk of it being able to benefit “thousands of properties” is akin to a drop in the ocean of the wider challenge. Not to mention that HS2 is now so far behind the original plan that, by the time it has completed, much of the underlying problem may have already been resolved.
On the other hand, the project has stated that telecoms companies could get access to masts and fibre optic cabling “two years before the railway opens – during the testing and commissioning phase“, which we assume may translate to sometime around 2027.
Equally, the biggest challenge is often less about core fibre capacity and more about the cost of connecting individual homes in sparse rural communities, but clearly there will be some remote areas that could still benefit and this is the first solid analysis we’ve seen of the scale. But the fact remains that many parts of the areas on the HS2 route already have core fibre optic cables nearby.
Passengers would naturally also benefit from “seamless mobile connectivity” throughout the project’s tunnels and cuttings, thanks to the new trackside network and technology aboard the new trains.