On 16 and 20 October 2020, the Minister for Digital Infrastructure, Matt Warman MP, answered written questions on the Government’s progress sin upgrading broadband infrastructure in the UK.
His answers can be read in full below:
Broadband
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
16 October 2020
Esther McVey: To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress his Department has made in upgrading broadband infrastructure in the UK.
Matt Warman: According to Thinkbroadband (https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/), coverage at UK premises for different broadband speeds is currently:
- Superfast (30Mbps) = 96.48%
- Ultrafast (100Mbps) = 63.02%
- Gigabit (1,000Mbps) = 27.22%
- Full Fibre (Gigabit+) = 17.12%
Virgin Media are in the process of activating gigabit services across their entire network by the end of 2021, and this currently covers over 52% of the UK. BT Openreach and CityFibre also have multi-billion pound fibre rollout programmes underway so a leap in gigabit coverage during 2021 is anticipated. This planned build predominantly covers urban areas so DCMS’s focus is on stimulating build in the more rural and disadvantaged areas of the UK where the commercial market will not build unaided.
The government has invested significant amounts in digital infrastructure over the last decade. The DCMS portfolio of active projects is currently c.£4 billion (detailed below) and in the Spring Budget, a further £5 billion of investment was announced for the hardest to reach areas of the UK. More details regarding the programme will follow in the Autumn Spending Review.
Current and future programmes are as follows:
- The Building Digital UK (BDUK) Superfast Broadband Programme is investing over £1.9 billion of public money (much of this match funded on top of this figure by local bodies, EU funds and suppliers) to ensure over 96.4% of UK premises have access to superfast broadband.
- The Local Full Fibre Networks Programme (LFFN) is investing £278 million to stimulate commercial investment in full fibre networks in both rural and urban locations across the whole of the UK. Currently 17% of UK premises have access to a full fibre connection, up from 0.9% in 2016. 27.2% of UK premises have access to gigabit-capable broadband.
- The Rural Gigabit Connectivity Programme (RGC) is investing up to £200 million on gigabit broadband connections in rural areas. This includes a rural voucher scheme where up to £3,500 is available to rural SMEs and up to £1,500 for rural premises is available to support the installation of gigabit-capable broadband when part of a group scheme. To date, the programme has issued vouchers to the value of £33.5 million. Top-up schemes are also operating across the UK where Local Authorities / Devolved Administrations provide their own funding on top of our values.
- The Shared Rural Network Programme (SRN) is investing £500 million of public funding with a further £500 million of match funding from industry to improve rural 4G coverage across the UK. The programme has just started but has already seen the first handful of new 4G sites go live.
- The 700MHz Spectrum Clearance Programme is investing up to £400 million on reconfiguring the use of the airwave in the UK to make more capacity available for 5G broadband. That programme completed its airwave clearance activity in August 2020.
- The 5G Trials and Testbeds Programme is investing c.£250 million in a number of 5G projects across the UK.
- We are in the process of mobilising our new £5 billion UK Gigabit Programme which was announced in the Spring Budget. Procurements will commence in early 2021.
Broadband
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
16 October 2020
Chi Onwurah: To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of trends in changes to broadband download speeds (a) regionally and (b) between urban and rural areas since 23 March 2020.
Matt Warman: The Ofcom Connected Nations report is published every 6 months. From this data we can see that as of May, 14.5% of the UK currently have full fibre broadband available. 15% of urban properties have full fibre broadband available. 12.4% of rural properties have full fibre broadband available.
Currently Thinkbroadband (http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/uk) shows that 27.2% of premises across the UK have access to Gigabit capable broadband, however it does not provide a urban/rural split. This is up from 18% in March 2020.
A breakdown of Full Fibre service by region is as follows:
| Jan 2020 | May 2020 | |
| East Midlands | 8.7 | 10.1 |
| East of England | 6.6 | 8.6 |
| London | 15.4 | 18.5 |
| North East | 4.1 | 5.2 |
| North West | 10.2 | 12.0 |
| Northern Ireland | 39.5 | 47.4 |
| Scotland | 10.2 | 12.8 |
| South East | 9.3 | 10.8 |
| South West | 14.2 | 16.8 |
| Wales | 13.3 | 15.3 |
| West Midlands | 11.8 | 13.7 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 19.5 | 22.0 |
Broadband
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
20 October 2020
Chi Onwurah: To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government is on target to meet its 2025 gigabit capable broadband rollout target.
Matt Warman: The Government is committed to delivering nationwide coverage of gigabit-capable broadband as soon as possible. According to ThinkBroadband, full fibre coverage now stands at 17%, up from 9% a year ago, with gigabit coverage at 27%. This means that over 1 in 4 premises can now access gigabit-capable connections.
We will continue to take action to remove barriers to meeting the target, to hasten network rollout and to ensure that those in the hardest to reach areas are not left behind. This is why we allocated £5 billion in the last budget to invest in gigabit rollout in the hardest to reach areas of the country.