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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to promote competition in the provision of superfast broadband.

The UK has a highly competitive broadband market. Superfast broadband is currently available to 78% of UK premises, up from 45% in 2010. BT’s wholesale access products are open to all Internet Service Providers, meaning that consumers have a range of retail Internet Service providers to buy broadband services from. In addition to BT, KCom and Virgin Media, a growing number of both fixed and wireless providers are making investments in competing broadband infrastructure. In September 2012 the Government announced a package of measures to reduce the barriers to deployment of superfast broadband, reducing red tape and bureaucracy to enable communications providers to deploy competing networks.

In August 2014 the Government consulted on the objectives for a long term digital communications infrastructure strategy to ensure the UK maintains its competitive position. We expect the strategy to be published early in 2015.