Telecommunications
(asked on 26th September 2014) - View Source
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many households in (a) England and Wales, (b) South Yorkshire and (c) Barnsley East constituency do not have access to (i) a fibre optic broadband connection, (ii) high speed broadband and (iii) the internet.
Ofcom have reported that Internet availability is virtually 100% across the whole United Kingdom.
Ofcom has also published fixed broadband data by local area, for example in its infrastructure report (stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/other/telecoms-research/broadband-speeds/infrastructure-report-2013/) and map (maps.ofcom.org.uk/broadband/), which included the data for 2013:
Area | Next Generation Access broadband availability 2013 | Broadband take-up (including superfast broadband) 2013 | Superfast broadband take-up 2013 |
England | 76% | 72% | 16% |
Wales | 48% | 70% | 9% |
Barnsley | 70.3% | 66.9% | 17.3% |
Doncaster | 76.1% | 69.3% | 15.9% |
Rotherham | 72.6% | 70.3% | 13.8% |
Sheffield | 81.3% | 68.5% | 17.7% |
Ofcom is likely to publish updated numbers later in 2014. It did not however publish data on a constituency basis.
Broadband take-up may be higher than these numbers suggest, as some households use mobile broadband but not fixed broadband and Internet usage likely to be higher still, as some individuals access the internet away from home.