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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how his Department plans to allow rural communities to table collective requests for broadband connections.

Ofcom has been commissioned to provide technical analysis and recommendations to help inform the design of the broadband Universal Service Obligation. One of the issues that they have been asked to advise on is how individual consumer requests for a broadband connection can be aggregated so that communities can benefit. Ofcom have published a call for inputs to support this work, which will run until 23rd June and this is available at:- http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/broadband-USO-CFI/ Ofcom has been asked to report on its findings by the end of the year.