Superfast Fibre Broadband

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, on obtaining this debate on a subject of such great importance. Having served on your Lordships’ Digital Skills Committee, I particularly agreed with the points he made on digital skills and digital inclusion. It is also a pleasure to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Fox, who, in a previous life, was a business client of mine.

I shall address two issues, with apologies for repetition. First, my concern that the superfast broadband rollout strategy will not prove ambitious enough; and secondly, the need for a more aggressive approach to the challenge of bringing superfast broadband to the elusive “final 5%” of premises across the UK.

We pride ourselves on the fact that the UK is a leading nation in terms of our digital infrastructure, including access to high-speed broadband. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, told us, the figures tell a rather less encouraging story. Our position in the Akamai global rankings for average fixed-line broadband performance is slipping. In the latest table we are ranked 19th in the world, down from 14th, 18 months previously; and ranked 13th in Europe, down one place. Our average speeds are improving, but at a slower pace than in many other countries in the top 30—only just over half of UK broadband connections achieve speeds of 10 megabits per second. Therefore, I welcome the proposed universal service obligation for access to broadband of at least 10 megabits. However, I question whether this will be enough. In these days of video streaming, catch-up television, big data, massive open online courses, and coming developments such as the internet of things, 10 megabits will soon fall far short. It does not even begin to meet the Government’s definition of superfast—namely, speeds of over 24 megabits.

As we have heard, most broadband supplied by BT’s Openreach subsidiary relies on copper wire, not fibre optic cable, for the final link to user premises—so-called fibre to the cabinet, rather than fibre to the home. This seems bound to constrain achievement of the even higher speeds likely to be required in the future—ultrafast broadband of 100 megabits or more, or hyperfast broadband of 1,000 megabits and up, for a truly gigabit society, as countries such as Singapore are aiming for. Fibre to the home coverage in the UK is below 2%, against a western European average of 25%. Therefore, I welcome Ofcom’s commitment to,

“encourage large-scale deployment of new ultrafast networks, including fibre direct to homes and businesses, as an alternative to the copper-based technologies currently being planned by BT”.

I realise that there are trade-offs between present costs and future-proofing, but I hope we will not rely too heavily on a single supplier, Openreach, and a single approach, fibre to the cabinet, lest we find in the future that we end up with the equivalent of only one runway—to use a topical comparison—at a time when we need several, if not many more. I certainly would like to see other suppliers encouraged, and indeed incentivised, to come up with more innovative solutions, not least to find ways of tackling that stubborn final 5%.

That brings me to my second theme. My home in Carmarthenshire has no mobile telephone coverage. BT provides a landline, with poor line quality and not infrequent interruptions or breakdowns. Until quite recently, BT also offered the only so-called broadband service available, which seldom, if ever, reached 2 megabits, despite being charged at BT’s standard broadband rates. No wonder Carmarthen East and Dinefwr was ranked third bottom in an Ofcom table of broadband speeds by constituency as at June 2015. Salvation came in the form of a small local network supplier, appropriately called ResQ, deploying a fixed wireless access system to which we were fortunately able to connect via a farm across the valley—I do not think we have a church spire in sight. We now get speeds of 10 megabits or more for both download and upload in order to support local businesses. However, the prospect of any significant further improvement seems remote, particularly if it depends on BT and Openreach, which already seem at full stretch just keeping the landlines working.

Would it not make sense to open up at least some of these hard-to-reach and less well-covered areas to a greater variety of different suppliers and technologies, with support and encouragement through some of the funding allocated to promote high-speed broadband rollout? Even if Openreach is not wholly split off from BT, there is surely a case for trialling new and more ambitious technologies aiming for higher levels of speed and service in some of these hitherto deprived areas. How otherwise can we avoid them slipping further and further behind in an increasingly digital world, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out? How nice it would be if some of the areas currently languishing in the final 5% backwater could be transformed through innovative technologies, including satellite and wireless technologies, for example, into the leading 5%, helping to bring the UK nearer to the top of the global league tables, where it surely needs to be to achieve the Prime Minister’s aspirations for our role in the world after Brexit. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us on plans to provide greater drive and impetus to make superfast broadband a genuine utility service, including for the final 5%.