UK reaches 10% full-fibre milestone

Just over 10% of British homes now have a full-fibre broadband connection, a study suggests.

The figures were compiled by consumer broadband advice site Think Broadband.com, which counts only "live" connections in its estimate.

Full-fibre links are among the fastest available, theoretically capable of handling gigabits of data every second.

The 10% landmark was passed late last week and is a significant increase on June, when 8.1% had the fast links.

Some areas of the UK had wider access to full-fibre than others, Andrew Ferguson, from Think Broadband, told BBC News.

And the technology was available to more than of 10% homes in only 100 out of the UK's 420 council regions.

Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, tops the table at 98.7% availability. Belfast is in second place, at 53%, and York third, at 52%.

The steady shift towards full-fibre had come from work done by Openreach, CityFibre, Hyperoptic and Community Fibre to lay cables and offer services, Mr Ferguson said.

The landmark has been passed just as Vodafone has struck a deal with Openreach to offer full-fibre to more than 500,000 homes and businesses in Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool.

Vodafone said its service would offer speeds of up to 900Mbps.

By contrast, more than 96% of the UK can get superfast broadband, which runs at 24Mbps. Ultrafast connections, which can hit 100Mbps and above, are available to 59% of UK premises.

Reaching the first 10% of coverage had taken about a decade, said Mr Ferguson, but the next 10% would probably be achieved in the next 12-18 months.

"That's all dependent on how fast the builds go," he said, "a bad winter may slow things down."