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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the benefits of the forthcoming release of 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz for the availability of high-speed mobile broadband in rural areas.

As noted in the initial conclusions of Ofcom's digital communications review published in February 2016, this spectrum "is best suited to providing additional capacity than increasing coverage" (para 3.49, p.30). Improving mobile coverage remains a key priority for Government and as a result of a licence obligation on O2 98% of UK premises should have indoor 4G coverage by end-2017.