Rural Areas: Superfast Broadband Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Fox
Main Page: Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Fox's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberActually, fibre is crucial because it underlines every other technology as, sooner or later, when you are on wireless, you get to a router, and the data come via fibre-optic cable. 5G, which will reach a lot more places and has more bandwidth, relies on fibre for all the extra masts that will be required.
My Lords, the Minister talked very broadly on the fibre front, but in rural and indeed less rural places like Leominster, people currently endure upload speeds of less than 1 megabit per second. Can he tell us when these people will be invited to join the digital economy?
At the moment, anyone with a connection of less than two megabits per second is entitled under the better broadband scheme to have subsidised access to it. If they are above that but below superfast level, the universal service obligation will be in place by 2020, which will give them 10 megabits per second, and that will allow them to do normal things such as emails and streaming TV.