Claim

Labour’s pledge to roll out full-fibre broadband to every home, in every part of the country, is “very much following the model of what’s happened elsewhere,” John McDonnell has said.

Background

Britain lags behind the rest of the world for broadband connectivity. Despite being the world’s fifth-largest economy, it ranks 35th out of 37 countries assessed by the OECD for the proportion of fibre in its total fixed broadband infrastructure. In 2017, the EU ranked Britain eighth for connectivity out of 28 member states. Despite progress, the country has slipped to 10th.

To address this, Labour plans to spend £15.3bn on top of the government’s existing £5bn plan to roll out full-fibre broadband. It would nationalise parts of BT to create a state-owned utility called British Broadband.

This would be free to consumers, paid for by a tax on internet firms such as Amazon, Facebook and Google.

Reality

The cost could be higher than Labour estimates. The National Infrastructure Commission put the price tag at closer to £30bn. The chief executive of BT, Philip Jansen, said about £30-40bn was needed, but that a free service would lead to double that cost after eight years. He said the total would be “not short of £100bn”.

It appears there are no countries that offer free broadband to every home. On these grounds, McDonnell is incorrect to say Britain is following other nations.

The shadow chancellor is, however, correct that other countries have made faster progress. In Japan and South Korea, there is more than 95% coverage but neither was achieved through a nationalised model.

In Japan, access to full-fibre broadband rocketed from about 23% in 2009 to more than 95%. The government launched a policy in 2008 called “zero broadband areas elimination”. In Japan, the internet is unbundled – the line is provided by one company, such as the former state-owned NTT, while the internet service is provided by another company, of which there are about a dozen. South Korea used an approach based on market principles alongside state-led investment.

Australia has attempted a part-nationalised model, though consumers still have to pay for the service and it has been criticised as a failure. Mark Gregory, a telecommunications expert at RMIT University, said Australia was “a third-world broadband country”. The costs rocketed from A$39.5bn in 2013 to A$51bn by 2018. There are record complaints and some customers do not get the minimum speeds promised.

Some countries have opted for more free-market competition, including Spain and Portugal, which have both achieved high levels of fibre rollout (63% and 86% respectively). There are, however, concerns about the potential to overbuild in densely populated areas and to underserve rural communities – unless there are government subsidies.

Reaching rural communities could be difficult for Labour, particularly in Scotland, a country with one of the lowest population densities in Europe. Many nations with high levels of fibre-broadband penetration are either small or have highly concentrated urban demographics, including Japan and the Netherlands. Housing patterns also have an impact. In Germany, Italy and Spain, half the population live in flats and apartments, compared with less than 20% in Britain.

There are likely to be major bottlenecks to build the system in the UK. Labour’s policy would require laying fibre cable to every home and business by 2030. Fitting the “last mile” is regarded as trickier and more expensive than upgrading the core of the network to fibre, then using existing copper cables to handle the final leg.

Some parts of Britain have made faster progress. Hull claims to be the first UK city where everyone can get full-fibre broadband. The lines were laid by local telecoms firm Kcom, which was once owned by the council as Kingston Communications. The firm says Hull would be the fastest broadband nation in the world if it were a republic.

Municipal broadband models are broadband services provided either fully or partially by local governments, such as Stokab, Stockholm’s fibre-broadband provider, which is considered a success story.

Not every household would make full use of fibre-broadband speeds. The average volume of data used in Britain is about 240 gigabytes per month. However, older adults and low-income households use the internet less than average.

The UK performs better for lower internet speeds required to handle basic tasks. Ofcom’s most recent global study, published in 2017, ranked Britain fourth out of 19 countries for speeds of 10 megabytes per second (mbps) and fifth for speeds of 30mbps or more. For speeds above 300mbps, the country was 15th. For full-fibre, the country was 18th, with only Nigeria ranked lower.

Labour is focusing on fixed-fibre broadband, but there are rapid advances in mobile internet likely to become more important in future. The UK has above-average 4G connectivity for the EU, but lags behind South Korea, the US, Australia and Japan. The government aims for Britain to be a world leader in 5G mobile internet, to ensure the majority of the population has access by 2027. Labour says that full-fibre and 5G are complementary technologies.

Verdict

There are precedents of countries achieving near-100% coverage, but not through entirely nationalised models, and none appear to offer free broadband to all users. In this respect, McDonnell is wrong to say Labour is following what has happened elsewhere. Entirely nationalised, free broadband would put Britain in uncharted territory.