Telecommunications: South East

(asked on 27th May 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to improve data connectivity in the South East.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 8th June 2021

The Government is committed to delivering nationwide gigabit connectivity as soon as possible. It is the Government's view that the best way to achieve this is to create a competition-friendly environment in areas where deployment is commercially viable while focussing government funds on the 20% of the country where commercial deployment is unlikely. As a result of this approach, there is now a thriving market of over 80 providers rolling out gigabit broadband all over the UK. We are also investing £5bn to ensure the hardest-to-reach areas in the UK receive coverage through Project Gigabit.

This approach is working. According to ThinkBroadband, in the South East, gigabit connectivity has increased from just 8% at the start of 2020 to 35% today. Average download speeds have also increased by 40% in the same period, from below 40 megabits per second to over 56 megabits per second.

There are 23 Superfast projects in the Government’s Superfast Broadband Programme in the South East, which have already provided coverage to 497,000 premises. Local Full Fibre Network projects have been completed in both Mid and West Sussex. 94 Rural Gigabit Connectivity hub sites have been contracted in the South East area and 48 sites, including schools have been delivered. The South East has benefited from the Voucher scheme which has seen 6,466 voucher connections with a value of over £13m invested in connectivity in the area coupled with a further £8.8m Top Up Vouchers issued. There are also a further 11,069 issued vouchers that are pending connections, totalling more than £19m.

Areas in the South East will also be amongst the first to benefit from our £5 billion Project Gigabit programme. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are in Phase 1b of the delivery plan, with Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, East and West Berkshire, Oxfordshire, East Sussex, Kent and Surrey all currently in line for Gigabit-capable rollout through Phase 2.

Furthermore, on 9 March last year, the Government agreed a £1 billion deal with the Mobile Network Operators to deliver the Shared Rural Network. This will see the operators collectively increase 4G mobile phone coverage throughout the UK to 95% by the end of the programme, underpinned by legally binding coverage commitments. The South East will benefit from the operator-led element of the Shared Rural Network which will see operators collectively invest over £530 million in a shared network of new and existing phone masts. This will help tackle partial not spots - areas where there is currently coverage from at least one, but not all operators. There have already been 700 new and upgraded sites announced by the operators this year and they are on track to eliminate the majority of these partial not spots by mid-2024.

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