Study finds UK lagging on FTTH provision

The UK is lagging behind its European counterparts when it comes to fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband provision, according to a new study.

Conducted by the FTTH Council Europe, the research revealed that only 0.05 per cent of UK households were hooked up to the ultra-fast broadband technology as of this June.

This subscriber penetration is lower than in any EU nation and also means the UK is trailing behind the nine other countries included in the report - Andorra, Croatia, Iceland, Israel, Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.

Although the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has pledged to deliver the best super-fast broadband network in Europe by the end of 2015, the council warned that the UK is "clearly lagging" and has no large-scale plans to roll out FTTH networks.

"It seems the Broadband Delivery UK project has missed the opportunity to bring the country real broadband," it added.

However, chief executive of Point Topic Oliver Johnson told V3 that the UK's broadband landscape is not quite as bad as the report makes out.

He said it is "great" to have high FTTH penetration, but stressed fibre-to-the-cabinet technology is a "good compromise" in more mature markets.