Superfast Broadband: Rural Communities
Debate between Calum Kerr and Simon Hart(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Calum Kerr
In a future debate, we should address the fact that there is too much outsourcing of policy decisions to Ofcom. A lot of these decisions are political. I sometimes joke with my hon. Friend that he is the MP for the Faroe Islands, but the reality is that the Faroe Islands have that coverage because they took a political decision. They wanted that level of coverage and they took the policy decisions to deliver it. We could do the same, but we do not. We tend to pragmatism and say, “It’s going to cost a lot of money. How important is it? We’ll ask Ofcom and then shape the answer. Ofcom suggested this and recommended that.”
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman makes 10 megabits sound like a dream that we aspire to, but given the rapid change in usage, will we be back here in five years having an argument about it? The Government will have fulfilled their obligations and ticked the box but will not actually have cured any of the problems we face.
Calum Kerr
That is an excellent point.
Let me explain why 10 megabits would be the wrong decision. Ofcom states:
“In designing any intervention, Government may want to consider the extent it should be designed to take into account further future growth in broadband usage. Doing so could help to ensure that consumers and business that rely on the USO are not left behind…Such an approach could support both better value for money by intervening once, and ensure that there is not a continual state of review, advice and reinvestment as requirements grow over time.”
If we go for 10 megabits now, we will be storing up more trouble for ourselves down the line. Let me jump ahead to a point that backs that up. There has been a lot of discussion about who will deliver the USO and about the high probability that it will be given lock, stock and barrel to BT—I think we need to be careful about that. BT’s response said:
“Existing technologies such as Fibre to the Cabinet and new technologies like long reach VDSL can offer cost-effective solutions for a 10M service but would require further investment if the requirement increased significantly, e.g. to 30M.”
That is a big “but”. If we specify a USO at 10 megabits, but what happens when we want to change it to 30 megabits? A USO does not entitle a user to free broadband. A telephony USO means that if someone does not have a telephony service, BT will provide it up to a cost of £3,400. We should imagine that in the broadband world. I do not have time to go into it today, but the detail of the Ofcom paper spells out different thresholds. Some hon. Members may think that the USO will fix everything for our constituents. It might mean that they are entitled to claim it, but it may give them a bill for thousands of pounds. What if it gives them a 10 megabits service? If they want 30 megabits in the future, they might have to pay for it again. We have to be so careful in how we implement this.
I am not going to address how much bandwidth we should use, but I will say that we need to raise our ambition. The Government need to put money into this, instead of trying to do it on the cheap. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland should rest assured that the Scottish Government are committed, with R100, to 100% superfast, meaning 30 megabits. The Minister has great ambition around fibre, and the UK Government should step up and show the same ambition.
I am not sure how much time I have left, Mr Brady—