The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced amendments to the Building Regulations 2010, which will require new properties built in England to be equipped with the infrastructure and connections required for a gigabit internet connection.
Connection costs will be capped at £2,000 ($2,400) per home, and if the amount needed to provide a gigabit connection exceeds the limit, developers will still have to connect.
The UK government estimates that 98% of installations fall within this limit. It was probably introduced to avoid uneven fares in remote rural areas requiring large-scale line upgrades. Properties built in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland may be exempt from the new legislation, as each country sets its own building regulations independently of England.
New homes in England must now be built with #GigabitBroadband connections
New laws mean home buyers, renters, and some leaseholders will be able to get lightning-fast connections, holding landlords accountable
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— Department for Digital, Cultura, Media and Sport (@DCMS) January 6, 2023
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The new law was passed on 26 December 2022 after a 12-month technical consultation found that around 12% of the 171,190 new homes built in England did not have gigabit broadband. According to DCMS, gigabit broadband is now available to more than 72% of UK households.
It is planned that from 2030 the entire United Kingdom should have access to gigabit broadband. To achieve this goal, another law has also been enacted that makes it easier to install high-speed Internet in older homes.
Previously, millions of tenants (in the UK there are approximately 480,000 rented flats) had to get permission from their landlords to install or upgrade the network. According to the estimates of Internet operators, landlords ignore about 40% of these requests, due to which tenants cannot upgrade services, even if they are no longer usable.
The Telecommunications Infrastructure (Tleased Property) Act 2021 (TILPA) now allows broadband providers in England and Wales to claim access rights through the courts if landlords and landowners do not respond to installation requests within 35 days.
Nothing should stop people from taking advantage of better communication. Thanks to the new laws, landlords will no longer prevent millions of users from upgrading to broadband, and people moving into new homes can be confident they’ll have access to the fastest internet on the day they move in,” Julia Lopez, minister for digital infrastructure, said in a statement.
It is estimated that at least 2,100 homes will be connected to high-speed broadband each year thanks to the new rules, with similar legislation due to come into effect in Scotland later this year.
