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If the last year has shown anything, it's that the UK is hugely dependent on digital connectivity. A year of uncertainty and lockdowns has left many of us viewing our broadband connection as an essential lifeline to the rest of the world.
Whether it's working from home in order to avoid packed commutes and crowded offices, staying in touch with distant - or even not-so-distant - relatives via video conference, or keeping the kids' education going while schools were closed, broadband has been at the heart of almost everything we've done in 2020.
But while the circumstances of the last year have been unique, many of the trends established are set to stay for the long term. A large number of people, for instance, have said they want to move to a more permanent mix of office and remote working. This will mean a fast, reliable broadband connection will continue to be an essential utility to support the country's economy.
So what do the coming years hold for the UK's broadband requirements, and what technologies could be on the way to help meet these needs?
The growing data demands
Increased home working is just one of the trends that are leading to more demand for data on our home broadband networks. How we spend our leisure time is also having a big impact.
For instance, the rise of video streaming has been a major change in our habits. Ofcom noted in January that a majority of adults now subscribe to at least one video streaming service, while the regulator also observed lockdowns led to a huge boost in demand for these services.
The regulator found that around 12 million people adopted a new video streaming service during lockdown, with around three million using one of these for the first time. As more people adopt these services and technologies such as 4K become more popular, this places even more strain on broadband networks.
It's not just video either. For instance, games are increasingly delivered via broadband networks, and these are also getting bigger all the time. A couple of years ago, the average size for a game on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One was around 30GB. In 2020, one of the biggest new releases, Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, clocked in at almost 190GB on Xbox Series X.
It may also be the case that tomorrow's broadband networks are expected to support cloud-based gaming streaming services, where latency will have to be minimised in order to provide a strong consumer experience. Already, services such as Google's Stadia are live, and these are likely to be joined by more advanced, data-intensive offerings in the coming years.
Is gigabit broadband enough?
These data-heavy services will put huge pressure on existing networks, both in terms of overall traffic volume and expectations from consumers to get their digital downloads quickly. On a typical entry-level 30Mbps connection, for example, the latest Call of Duty would take 15 hours to download - assuming the connection was being used exclusively for this, with no slowdowns.
Even on a 1Gbps fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connection, this would take nearly half an hour, and as the expectation for even bigger downloads grows, faster services may be needed in the long term.
Some technologies have already come and gone quickly as the increasing demands outstripped what they could provide. For instance, a few years ago, BT was looking to invest in G.fast technology as a cost-effective way to increase broadband speeds without the need to replace copper connections with full fibre. However, by 2019 it was already becoming clear that this would not be enough for future needs, so rollouts were scaled back in favour of FTTP.
But will 1Gbps fibre be enough to meet the needs of the next decade? There are already suggestions that the long-term future of broadband connectivity lies in 10Gbps services, or 10G, as it's sometimes known. Indeed, Virgin Media's parent firm LibertyGlobal announced in November it intends to start work on these services in the near future.
Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global, said: "We're really focused on 10G ... When I mentioned 1Gbps five or six years ago, everybody was like.. what the heck is that needed for? Trust me when I say that the 10Gbps conversation will be starting and will be starting pretty quickly."
However, when this does become a reality, the good news is it should be a less comprehensive overhaul than the move from copper to full fibre, depending on the technologies used.
While next-generation cable rollouts such as DOCSIS 4.0 may be complex, in theory, supporting 10G FTTP services should not need existing fibre to be replaced. Instead, it will be a case of upgrading equipment at either end - at the exchange and in the end-user's home - to support these services.
This technology would promise to not only offer faster speeds, but also reduced latency, better reliability and enhanced security measures.
