Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to assess the accuracy of rates of (a) access and (b) take-up for superfast broadband.

Statistics on the availability of superfast broadband are available from a number of published sources including Ofcom’s Connected Nations Report and International Communications Market Report, and the Thinkbroadband website. The government also tracks coverage based on data reported by suppliers.

Coverage delivered through the government’s Superfast Broadband Programme is reported quarterly by suppliers at address level. For technologies such as Fibre to the Cabinet which do not provide fibre all the way to individual premises, the reported coverage data is based on modelled speeds, as the actual speeds that are attainable for a specific premises cannot be confirmed until an upgraded broadband service goes live. BT has undertaken three comparisons of actual against modelled speeds for its Fibre to the Cabinet coverage under the Superfast Broadband Programme, most recently with a dataset of 1.5 million lines, and the results show that in aggregate the number of premises that can obtain superfast speeds in practice is greater than the modelled figure.

Take-up rates are published by suppliers in their quarterly and annual reports. Rates of take-up in areas which have gained coverage as a result of the Superfast Broadband Programme are reported to Local Bodies. This is disaggregated to local levels to allow Local Bodies to identify where take-up is either lower or higher than the average, to support targeting of local demand stimulation activities. Take-up rates from projects in the Phase 1 Superfast Broadband Programme now average over 40%, significantly higher than the level expected by suppliers at the start of the programme.