Broadband: Rural Areas

(asked on 6th May 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of working from home during the covid-19 lockdown on the quality of rural broadband.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 11th May 2020

Overall, the UK's broadband network has stood up well to mass home working and leisure usage as a result of COVID-19, including in rural areas. This is a result of the contingency planning that the Government has done with industry and also the Government's £1.7 billion superfast broadband programme, which has ensured that 96% of UK premises have access to superfast broadband.

However, the Government recognises that rural coverage lags behind the rest of the UK, which is why we legislated to create the first-ever broadband Universal Service Obligation, which went live in March 2020. The scheme allows everyone in the UK to request a decent broadband connection of at least 10 megabits per second from a designated universal service provider, up to a reasonable cost threshold of £3,400.

At Budget, we also committed to invest £5 billion to roll out gigabit broadband in the hardest to reach areas of the UK. At present, our £200 million Rural Gigabit Connectivity programme remains open, offering voucher-based support for eligible consumers to request gigabit-capable connections from a variety of providers.

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