Norway’s National Communications Authority (Nasjonal kommunikasjonsmyndighet, Nkom) has revealed a notable increase in the number of homes and businesses which have access to gigabit speeds. According to the regulator, at mid-2021 86.5% of the country’s premises were able to sign up for a fixed broadband service offering downlink speeds of 1Gbps, up from 52.9% a year earlier. At the lower end of the scale, meanwhile, 98.3% of homes and businesses could access downlink speeds of 30Mbps, broadly unchanged from 98.2% at mid-2020, while the percentage of premises with access to speeds of 100Mbps stood at 90.4% at 30 June 2021, up from 88.6% a year earlier.
With regards to uptake, the Nkom reported that the number of residential fixed and fixed-wireless broadband subscriptions increased to 2.226 million at the end of June 2021, up from 2.178 million a year earlier, with the lion’s share of those – 1.396 million, up from 1.242 million – connecting via fibre-based technologies. Cable-based broadband subscriptions fell marginally, to 557,000 (June 2020: 585,000), while xDSL-based subscriptions continued to decline, accounting for just 6% of the total (134,000) at mid-2021, down from around 12% a year earlier. By comparison fixed-wireless broadband subscriptions saw a notable uptick, reaching 104,000 at 30 June 2021, up from 54,000 a year earlier.
Meanwhile, as part of its bi-annual publication of communications data, the Nkom also issued an update on the availability of 5G, noting that as of mid-2021 outdoor 5G population coverage stood at 23.3%, up from 5.4% a year earlier, while indoor 5G coverage stood at 11.3% at mid-2021 (with no comparable figure for mid-2020). There was, though, a notable difference in accessibility between densely populated areas and other parts of the country, with outdoor coverage in the former standing at 27.8% at mid-2021, compared to just 4.6% for the latter.