No need for speed?: An analysis of UK Broadband speeds from 2014 to 2024

The aim of this paper is to investigate broadband speed trends across the UK’s top and bottom-performing local authorities. The paper examines how the gap between the digital ‘hotspots’ (i.e., areas with fastest speeds) and ‘notspots’ (i.e., areas with slowest speeds) evolved in two distinct time periods: pre-pandemic (2014-2019) and post-pandemic (2020-2024). Based on the UK Office of Communications Connected Nations dataset from 2014 to 2024, the paper draws on descriptive temporal trend analysis and regression discontinuity analysis to produce three main findings on UK broadband connectivity from 2014 to 2024: • Quantification of the broadband speed trajectories. • Understanding of the digital divide between UK broadband hotspots and notspots over time before and after the Covid-19 pandemic; and • The impact of USO for broadband on performance and coverage of UK broadband infrastructure. The findings show that broadband quality in the UK improved substantially from 2014 to 2024 across all authority areas. Despite this, the digital divide widened in absolute terms i.e., the speed gap between hotspots and notspots increased almost three-fold. The findings highlight that island communities and remote rural regions in the UK need extra support beyond the universal service obligation. The paper argues that to fully understand the impact of USO for broadband policy (and other similar government interventions), the role of baseline connectivity and commercial investment priorities in long-term changes to broadband performance and coverage needs to be examined in conjunction with quantitative analysis of long-term data sets, and qualitative evidence to provide the necessary context on geographic constraints and local demand. These findings are expected to be of interest to academic researchers, communications industry stakeholders, and broadband policymakers.