According to foreign media Light Reading, British Home Secretary Priti Patel is helping telecommunications companies find skilled labor to promote “gigabit broadband”.

 

Gigabit Broadband

According to the Times, Patel sent a letter to network operators explaining that foreign workers could be fast-tracked through the UK immigration system to help make up for any skills shortages that could slow the laying of fibre. The Times reported that workers from abroad could reach thousands.

 

Gigabit project in progress

Shortly after the Times report was published, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced the first “major contract” under Project Gigabit, a £5bn government scheme to fund broadband deployments in remote and rural areas.

 

At the end of last month, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (now replaced by new Prime Minister Liz Truss) signed a £6m contract with Wessex Internet in North Dorset. Under the contract, Wessex Internet will connect 7,000 hard-to-reach locations with a gigabit network. The first dwellings will be connected by the end of this year, with full completion expected in 2025.

 

As part of the summer update of the Gigabit project in Building Digital UK (BDUK) (BDUK is the implementing agency of DCMS), the UK government has announced the procurement of more than £690 million of homes via gigabit broadband as part of the scheme The number (again as part of the program) reached 498,000.

 

The UK government has set a target that by 2025, 85% of all internet connections in the UK will have gigabit speeds.

 

According to ThinkBroadband, cited by BDUK, seven out of 10 UK properties “have access to the fastest and most reliable internet connections that homes and businesses need to take full advantage of revolutionary new technological advancements for decades to come”. 2021 Gigabit penetration of UK properties was just over 42% in August.

 

However, the vast majority of them are unlikely to be connected to the Internet via a full-fibre connection. UK regulator Ofcom reported in May that while two-thirds of UK households have access to gigabit broadband, only one-third have access to full-fibre plans.

 

Virgin Media leads the way in deploying a gigabit network in the UK, which covers more than twice the number of venues as second-placed Openreach.