It’s a fine old world that we live in when a British astronaut can do a marathon in space and yet we struggle to get superfast broadband or a mobile signal to some of our rural areas.
I paid a visit recently to a business in my constituency that by the very nature of its business, is dependent on the internet and yet it is struggling with its current satellite solution with no sign of superfast broadband in the near future. They employ 60 people, who live and work in an idyllic location, and yet the company may have to move if it continues to be left behind. It’s certainly not what we want. We must encourage our businesses and talented young people and students to stay here, if they want to, and not let them disappear – probably down south – so they can keep up with the times.
It is essential that the whole of the UK has a Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) network to help secure our future economic prosperity. We are woefully behind other countries with only 2% of the country receiving ultrafast broadband via fibre, whilst Korea, Spain, Lithuania and Portugal are at around 60%, and Japan 70%.
The July 2016 report by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee states that BT is "significantly under investing" in Openreach, its infrastructure subsidiary, potentially to the tune of “hundreds of millions of pounds a year.” So the proposal to separate Openreach from the rest of the BT Group is good news and I welcome the fact that the Chief Executive and other board members will not be appointed by the BT Group itself. But do these changes go far enough? I remain concerned that the BT Group will be setting the overall budget for Openreach, effectively maintaining control over the growth of the network and so it is not at all clear whether future investment in FFTP will be increased following the proposed changes. I have made my concerns known to Sharon White, Chief Executive of the regulator, Ofcom, on a number of occasions and also on the floor of the House.
The Ofcom strategy to require BT to open access to third party providers to the ducts and poles of Openreach to increase FTTP penetration is encouraging. BT is now working with 5 other telecom companies on simpler access processes, with revised costs, which hitherto have made the arrangement prohibitively expensive. I will be following these developments closely but it is certainly a step in the right direction. To put this into practice, I am proposing that future rounds of government funding for the roll-out of broadband to hard-to-reach areas includes a new contractual obligation. This would mean the successful bidder must allow the local delivery authority to facilitate third party access to ducts and poles of both existing and new infrastructure. This would then simplify access for large, small and community providers, thereby achieving the primary objective of creating a competitive marketplace for superfast broadband roll-out.
This is not all. There is a distinct lack of clarity over which villages will be enabled next. For instance, we had been working with Hutton-le-Hole Parish on its own wireless scheme from the not-for-profit community provider, Moorsweb. It was only by arranging a meeting with the Head of BT Fibre rollout that we discovered that they are included in the phase 2a rollout and that, all being well, they will receive FTTC by June 2017. Conversely, the village of Rosedale thought they were getting broadband, only to be told it is too expensive owing to the requirement to upgrade the electricity supply. This makes no sense at all and I am pleased, following our intervention, that SuperFast North Yorkshire, the delivery agency, are now writing to inform the parish councils of villages who are scheduled for fibre.
Then, of course, there is the problem of mobile coverage. It seems hardly possible that you can get a signal in the wilds of Africa or the top of the Alps and yet none in some of our rural hamlets. This has created a ‘mobile divide’ between urban and rural areas and, once again, can limit economic opportunities. So we also need to ensure that we have world class mobile networks to reach all corners of the UK, however remote. The network operators are investing £5bn in improving coverage and we are seeing some significant improvements in most parts of the constituency.
The Government is already investing £1.7 billion in broadband roll-out and nine out of every 10 homes and businesses can now access superfast speeds. It is also on track to achieve its manifesto commitment to deliver access to superfast broadband to at least 95 per cent of the UK by the end of 2017. The new Digital Economy Bill will introduce a Universal Service Obligation so every premise in the country will have access to broadband at a speed of 10Mbps as an absolute minimum by the end of this Parliament. The measures in this Bill will also drive investment in digital infrastructure by giving communications providers the ability to install and update equipment at less cost and with fewer regulatory hurdles. Additionally, the Government announced £1 billion of investment in the 2016 Autumn Statement. This will support the private sector to roll out more full-fibre broadband over the next 5 years and support trials of 5G mobile communications. In the meantime, for those with very slow broadband, the Government has introduced the Better Broadband Scheme. Anyone, in any part of the UK, whose broadband is slower than 2Mbps, can apply to this scheme to get government support for a faster connection to allow them to carry out the basic online tasks that are expected in a modern world such as emailing, or completing online forms.
I will continue to press for improved access and more funding to deliver Ultrafast broadband to rural areas and will follow developments closely in the months ahead. If we do not get the improvements we need I will not hesitate to call for more action. If you are suffering any specific difficulties, please do email us at [email protected] as there are a number of solutions that we may be able to advise and help with and we would be only too pleased to do so.
