A range of ways in which government funding can stimulate the deployment of the ‘full fibre’ infrastructure that will enable the transition of fixed and mobile broadband to the next levels of high speed, reliable connectivity are set out by the Dept for Culture, Media and Sport in ‘Call for Evidence: Extending Local Full Fibre Broadband Networks’.

While there are interim technologies that will also give faster connectivity than is currently available, full fibre connection, where the broadband line to a consumer or business premise is an unbroken optical fibre line from the exchange, is recognised as the future.

Commonly referred to as ‘fibre to the premise’ (FTTP) or ‘fibre to the home’ (FTTH), full fibre broadband is capable of offering upwards of 1 gigabit per second download and upload speeds, and very high levels of service quality.

Full fibre networks are also easier to maintain and have lower operational costs than alternative large scale, high speed networks.

As announced in Autumn Statement 2016, further public funding will be made available in Budget 2017 to complement existing budgets. The Call for Evidence sets out a number of ways in which it could be used to stimulate the market, including full fibre business vouchers, public sector data aggregation and supply side approaches.

In particular, DCMS would like to explore approaches where local bodies use public sector buildings as ‘anchor’ customers in a way that enables the market to extend coverage into surrounding local areas.

1  January 2017