What I find interesting about this is how embarrassingly low the United Kingdom is considering its history as a telecom power house. In my eyes, and maybe I'm reading this data wrong, it really showcases the devastating impact the privatization of our services has had on our country. We have basically stagnated on speeds since the early 2000's.
I still have the same speeds I had 10 years ago (100Mb/S with no opportunity to improve it). My family who live in the countryside (keep in mind in the UK, countryside can mean less than 10 miles from the nearest city) have been stuck with the same provider with the same near unusable broadband for the last 7 or 8 years. It's a sorry state of affairs.
What provider are you with that is stuck at 100Mb? and what's the countryside speed/provider?
I have had gigabit in the rural homes and the flat in London that covers the last 6 years, before that is was Virgin media.
We actually have ~40%(1) of the country now on gigabit capable infrastructure many of those can choose between gigabit from multiple different first mile infrastructure providers. The government project 85%(2) gigabit coverage by 2025, I think we will get higher than that from all the plans I have seen.
The biggest problem we in the Altnet world (non BT/Virgin media FTTH) is take up. Most people don't actually care and are happy to just stay on the cheapest 60Mb Sky/BT/NowTV/etc package for £22 a month. We see about 10% takeup/interest in areas with Virgin and FTTC, about 15% in areas with FTTC.
You’re entirely right about the cause. BT even had a plan to roll out fibre quite early, but Thatcher’s neoliberal government cancelled it in favour of privatisation.
I still have the same speeds I had 10 years ago (100Mb/S with no opportunity to improve it). My family who live in the countryside (keep in mind in the UK, countryside can mean less than 10 miles from the nearest city) have been stuck with the same provider with the same near unusable broadband for the last 7 or 8 years. It's a sorry state of affairs.