Consultation outcome

Closure of the January 2023 National Rolling Open Market Review

Updated 16 April 2024

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/project-gigabit-national-rolling-open-market-review-january-2023/outcome/closure-of-the-january-2023-national-rolling-open-market-review

The January 2023 National Rolling Open Market Review (NR OMR) ran from 20 January to 3 March 2023.

Building Digital UK (BDUK) requested that suppliers submit their national broadband infrastructure plans, so as to confirm where gigabit-capable broadband infrastructure currently exists or is planned to be built in the UK over the next 3 years.

We have now completed evaluating all submissions received and issued formal responses to all suppliers who submitted information over the course of this exercise; including the subsidy control classification treatment of their existing or planned qualifying broadband infrastructure.

Details on the classification system of White, Grey, Black and Under Review and methodology can be found in the section below BDUK Classifications and methodology for this NR OMR.

Further information on the OMR/PR process and how we reach our conclusions can be found in our Subsidy Control Guidance document.

1. Purpose of the National Rolling Open Market Review

The purpose of the NR OMR, which operates on a 4-monthly basis (January, May and September), is to ensure that BDUK has the most up to date information about suppliers’ existing and planned build over the next 3-year period.

This will support better strategic planning and prioritisation of procurement Intervention Areas (IAs), streamline the OMR process and minimise the risk of BDUK intervening in an area that would disrupt existing commercial plans.

For further guidance on how BDUK determines our IAs for subsidy, please refer to Section 6 ‘Determining Intervention Areas’ of our Open Market Review (OMR) and Public Review (PR) - Subsidy Control Guidance document.

Data collected from the NR OMR will also be used to inform GigaHubs and UK Gigabit Voucher eligibility as well as support the development of other potential BDUK interventions.

2. BDUK classifications and methodology for this National Rolling Open Market Review

During the NR OMR, BDUK categorised premises as gigabit White, Grey, Black or Under Review.

Subsidy control classifications are set out below:

  • White - indicates premises with no gigabit network infrastructure and none is likely to be developed within 3 years [footnote 1]
  • Grey - indicates premises where a single qualifying gigabit infrastructure from a single supplier is available, or is to be deployed within the coming 3 years [footnote 1]
  • Black - indicates premises with two or more qualifying gigabit infrastructures from different suppliers being available, or will be deployed within the coming 3 years [footnote 1]
  • Under Review - indicates premises where suppliers have reported current or planned commercial broadband coverage, but where claimed current gigabit coverage has not been verified, or, in respect of planned build, where evaluators are confident that gigabit infrastructure will be delivered, but some risks to delivery remain, or there are some gaps in evidence

BDUK will only provide subsidy to target premises that have been designated as White. Premises which have been designated as Under Review may be included within the Deferred Scope of a procurement. Where this is the case, a further review will be undertaken to confirm whether they are Grey or White before they are released for build.

In accordance with the OMR/PR processes, supplier data submitted during the NR OMR has been mapped using a methodology that protects commercially sensitive supplier data.

3. Summary of January 2023 National Rolling Open Market Review findings - premises eligibility

For presentational purposes only, postcode-level mapping has been used to present the NR OMR regional maps showing eligible premises. (NB we will only subsidise build to premises which have been designated as White - postcodes are not used to determine IAs for subsidy).

For this purpose, postcodes have been classified as follows:

  1. A postcode is White if any White premises are present

  2. A postcode is Under Review if any Under Review premises are present

  3. A postcode is Black if all premises in the postcode are classified Black

  4. A postcode is Grey if all premises are Grey, or a mixture of Grey and Black

The January 2023 NR OMR postcode level maps summarising these premises classifications have been provided on the January 2023 NR OMR homepage. Suppliers - please note that these maps do not show which Unique Property Reference Number (UPRNs) have been determined as White and Under Review.

Please note that the data summarised within the January 2023 NR OMR table below by BDUK may not fully reflect the latest GigaHubs and Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy (GIS) contracted information, as a result of the timelines involved for this mapping exercise. BDUK will endeavour to ensure that this is corrected for future NR OMR outputs as required.

In the interim, BDUK has already communicated the above to all NR OMR respondents and will ensure that Gigahubs and GIS contracted information is fully taken account of with regards to the creation and updating of our IAs for procurements.

The outcome of the January 2023 NR OMR is summarised in terms of White, Grey, Black and Under Review postcodes and premises below which incorporates all regions across England only.

Postcode classification Number of postcodes Number of gigabit Black premises Number of gigabit Grey premises Number of gigabit Under Review premises Number of gigabit White premises
White 392,322 754,715 2,704,922 1,742,188 2,878,739
Under Review 442,631 544,879 2,512,316 4,729,322 0
Grey 490,584 1,757,039 7,670,261 0 0
Black 168,697 3,459,022 0 0 0
Total 1,494,234 6,515,655 12,887,499 6,471,510 2,878,739

4. Differences between National Rolling Open Market Review and Public Review outcome classifications

Please note, the data held by BDUK following a Public Review (PR) is used to define IAs for procurements at a point in time.

Also, not all active suppliers opted to contribute to this January 2023 NR OMR process on this occasion, despite this being the first iteration of the NR OMR process that was open for all suppliers to provide a submission to.

Therefore NR OMR data may differ from the outcome of a PR due to the point in time that the data was captured, or due to different suppliers providing responses.

IA eligibility is therefore defined using a combination of PR and NR OMR data (ie where a supplier has not contributed to the NR OMR, the PR would be expected to take precedence).

The data submitted to the NR OMR will continue to be processed in the same way as that submitted to previous local OMRs and will be used for mapping categorisations of UPRNs. This will generally be fed into a PR process for new areas. However, If BDUK receives new data for UPRNs which have been the subject of a previous PR determination, if it meets the evidential requirements, BDUK may use NR OMR data to update the previous areas by area PR determinations at our own discretion.

5. January 2023 National Rolling Open Market Review Conclusion

For the purposes of the January 2023 NR OMR, BDUK was pleased to extend the invitation to all suppliers to submit a response for consideration for the first time. The January 2023 NR OMR provided BDUK with the opportunity to test newly implemented processes and further build upon lessons learned from previous NR OMRs undertaken.

This has resulted in the subsequent May 2023 NR OMR being able to align with this January 2023 iteration by continuing to extend the invitation for all suppliers to submit a response for consideration. In addition to this, we have further expanded the scope of the May 2023 NR OMR process to include the assessment of data and evidence submitted across both England and Wales for the first time.

The January 2023 NR OMR outputs have been provided via 10 separate files geographically broken down by Project Gigabit Lots.

The Lot-region output splits within each file are available below:

Please see our latest Project Gigabit update for further details on Project Gigabit procurement timelines along with Project Gigabit Contracts for details of contracts awarded by BDUK.

The May 2023 iteration of the NR OMR is currently live, and due to close for responses on 20 June 2023 at 5pm. BDUK will begin undertaking initial evaluation activities of supplier responses shortly after this closing date.

Please see the May 2023 NR OMR Request For Information document for further details.

If you have any questions on the NR OMR process, please contact us at ukgigabit@bduk.zendesk.com.

  1. There may be occasions where credible plans extend beyond a 3-year period, in that case, these may be taken into account. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

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