UK To Commit £5bn to Achieve Gigabit Internet Roll-Out by 2025

While having access to ‘full-fiber’ internet is nice (particularly with the speeds it can throw your way) the vast majority of UK homes are still largely restricted to a standard broadband connection. A service that generally provides average speeds of around 2-8mbps.

While the UK has recently been rolling out copper upgrades (that can see those speeds increase by anything up to 8 times) you may recall that the UK government did recently pledge to see that every home had access to full-fiber internet by 2025.

Now, at the time, we thought this was a pretty ridiculous target. Not just in terms of practicality, but the cost that would be required to provide it to heavily-rural areas. It was, therefore, no surprise when this pledge was somewhat watered-down. This changed the term from ‘full-fiber’ to simply ‘gigabit’. Words are, of course, important and this little shift in the goalposts did make the target a lot more achievable by lowering the bar. Despite this though, the target was still more than a little challenging.

In a report via ISPreview, however, the UK Government is set to confirm this week that £5bn will be committed solely to seeing this roll-out achieved.

UK Government to Commit £5bn To Internet Improvement

The shifting to a ‘gigabit’ requirement will likely see around 50% of homes covered under the pledge within the timeframe. That does, however, still leave the small matter of that other 50% who will not. Particularly those who live in isolated areas or villages who likely currently have pretty awful internet speeds.

Even despite this change of requirement, the task ahead is still pretty monumental. As such, many doubt that even with $5bn specifically invested in it, that it will be enough to really bring about a nationwide coverage.

The money will help, but I am more than a little cynical here. I honestly doubt that even my relatively large village is going to get ‘gigabit’ internet by 2025. The government has just over 5 years to prove me wrong though!

What do you think? How fast is your internet? Do you think this target can be realistically achieved by 2025? – Let us know in the comments!