Evaluation of Next Generation Broadband Wales programme: 2015 to 2018

The programme aimed to bring next-generation broadband access to premises that were not forecast to be included in a commercial roll-out.

Through its activity between 2015 and 2018, the programme provided 101,202 premises across Wales with access to next generation broadband infrastructure.

Wales has gone from being the UK nation with the lowest availability of next-generation broadband access in 2014 to one of the highest.

The level of take-up of next-generation broadband in Wales remains the lowest across the UK nations at 38%. However, it is substantially higher amongst premises connected through the programme, at around 50%.

Findings from stakeholder interviews include:

barriers to delivery were overcome through good internal communication and activity by local champions
management and governance processes functioned well
an innovative Test and Verification procedure was developed that provided Welsh Government and BT/Openreach with more accurate and reliable monitoring data
processes for communication between internal stakeholders functioned well and attempts to address previous criticism of the external communications approach were partly successful.

Reports