Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-02-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps his Department has taken to tackle disparities in broadband coverage in (a) London and (b) the UK.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The Government is working with commercial broadband providers to encourage them to fill the remaining gaps in superfast broadband coverage in London. BT has announced £50 million of investment in new commercial coverage, much of which will be aimed at London, and Virgin Media has announced a demand led investment programme of £3 billion over the next few years. Other suppliers are also active in London.

As a result of commercially-led delivery and public funding in areas which are not commercially viable, superfast broadband coverage across the UK now reaches almost 90% of premises, providing access to speeds of more than 24Mbps. Coverage is on track to increase to 95% of premises by December 2017. The Government has also announced proposals for a Universal Service Obligation to enable all premises to request a broadband speed of at least 10Mbps, with the aim of implementing it in this Parliament. A basic broadband scheme has also been introduced across the UK allowing all premises with speeds below 2Mbps to gain access to speeds above this level through a subsidised satellite broadband connection.