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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the oral evidence taken by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on 3 December 2014, Question 6, and 10 December 2014, Questions 168, 169 and 174, how many premises in (a) 2012 and (b) 2013 were not and in (c) 2014, (d) 2015 and (e) 2016 will not be able to get at least 2 Mbps broadband from copper and fibre networks; what the geographic location is of those premises; what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of covering the capital equipment and installation cost of a satellite broadband solution for those premises in (i) 2015 and (ii) 2016; and what estimate he has made of the monthly cost to the consumer of such a solution.

Ofcom reported in its Infrastructure Report 2013 that the proportions of connections receiving below 2Mbit/s were 10% in 2012 and 8% in 2013, while in its Infrastructure Report 2014 it reported proportions were 6% in 2013 and 4% in 2014. The locations of these slow connections are available at postcode level at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/research/ir/Fixed_postcode.zipand by local authority at http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/infrastructure/2014/Fixed_local_authority.csv Ofcom suggested that about half of the 4% of premises in June 2014 receiving below 2Mbit/s already had access to superfast services. Almost all premises should be able to have access to at least 2Mbit/s by 2016. The cost of providing a minimum of 2Mbit/s broadband services would vary dependent upon the solution deployed; for satellite broadband the installation cost could be in the range £100 - £500 per user, and monthly costs to consumers could be from £25.