The state of broadband in Cardiff and the rest of Wales

There is no doubt that broadband availability is an important consideration for people when they are deciding where to live. Or, where they are going to set up their businesses. So it is not surprising that those areas of the city that offer the fastest connections tend to attract large firms or those industries that are heavily dependent on data. Overall, our capital city offers its residents good connections to the web.

However, that is not necessarily the case for those who live in other areas of Wales. A recent report produced by the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee reveals that Wales is still not as well connected as some parts of the UK. The headline figures are:

• 27% of Welsh premises have access to a full-fibre connection in comparison to 28% across the entire UK
• 44% had access to a connection that was 300 Mbps or faster. Across the UK that figure is 66%
• 46% of Welsh premises have access to a connection of 100 Mbps or faster, for the UK as a whole that figure is 66%
• 94% have a connection speed of 30 Mbps or faster, for the UK as a whole that figure is 96%
• 97% of Welsh premises have access to 10 Mbps or faster connection in comparison to 98% of the UK as a whole
• Ofcom estimates that around 15,000 premises (1%) cannot get a broadband service of at least 10 Mbps download speed and 1Mbps upload

Those figures do not look great, but the situation is improving and doing so at quite a fast rate. In 2014, only 55% of residents in Wales had access to 30 Mbps or faster connection. At a time when 75% of residents in the UK as a whole did have access. Today, for that particular metric, Wales is on a level footing with the rest of the UK.

However, operating a business or keeping a family entertained with a 30Mbps connection is far from ideal. At those speeds, “buffering hell” is still very much an issue. At times things slow down so much that videos refuse to play, programs crash, data gets lost, or errors are made because of over keying.

Work to tackle these issues is ongoing and is being prioritised, but nobody thinks that bridging the gap is going to be easy. It will require quite a bit of investment and in some cases a bit of lateral thinking. There are places in Wales where laying optical fibre cables is never going to make financial sense. In some cases, it may not even be physically possible.

Interestingly some of the solutions may be found in the way that Cardiff tackled its lack of access to fast connections. In 2014, Cardiff was one of the cities given funding by the UK government to take its internet infrastructure to the next level. The city received £11 million of the £143 million that was available to the 10 biggest cities in the UK.

Instead of spending it all on one big project, the authorities took a slightly different approach. For a city like Cardiff, there was no one size fits all solution. Some residents who did not have steady work would need access to no contract broadband options. While others such as the big tech firms would need superfast connections which while expensive were essential to the success of their business. They would need FTTH connections which meant laying fibre optic cables that went right up to their doorstep. Instead of using the existing copper telecommunication cables to deliver the signal. Something that is OK for most home users, but no good for businesses who need ultrafast connections to keep the data flowing.

Recognising the fact that each area of the city had diverse needs led to different solutions being deployed. In many cases, by different companies. As a result, today, 17 providers serve the city. Which for the city's residents is great news. The fact that they have so much choice makes It easy for them to switch. This level of competition means that consumers are getting access for a relatively low price. Although, the cost of broadband in Cardiff has still risen slightly. Higher overheads mean that firms just cannot afford to offer the service at the same price as they did last year.

The next milestone for the city is ultrafast broadband for all. Cardiff already has the highest level of gigabit connections in Wales, with funding in place to continue to roll this service out in other areas of the city. So, it is not a stretch to say that when it comes to fast broadband access Cardiff is leading the way.