The government’s proposed “right to request” superfast broadband connections was disappointing, said the network in response to an Ofcom consultation.
Rural homes and businesses were being treated differently to the 95% of premises already connected, the network warned.

“Government intervention through the Superfast Broadband Programme has enabled networks to extend into rural areas where there has been a market failure,” said the network.

“This is benefitting many rural households and businesses – albeit often in the easier-to-reach rural areas,” it added.

The government has proposed a Universal Service Obligation that would see all premises given a legal right to receive a minimum broadband speed of 10Mbps.

But the network said: “Renewed effort is now required to reach the final 5% of premises, most of whom are in rural locations and who still constitute around a quarter of all rural premises.”

It had become clear that the proposal was, in fact, simply a “right to request” access to a broadband network rather than universal provision of access to such networks.

“This is very disappointing and means that households and businesses in the final 5% are being treated quite differently from those in the 95%.”
The network said premises which couldn’t achieve an acceptable broadband connection must not be financially penalised simply because of their location.

“Some form of uniform pricing structure is therefore required for USO provision,” it said. “This would be in line with other USOs, such as that for postage.”

The network said it strongly supported the notion that the cost of providing a USO connection to consumers should not be disproportionate.

Proposals for the USO would lead to unreasonable connection costs for some rural consumers, especially in the most remote or sparsely populated areas.
By definition it was likely to be relatively costly to provide broadband to the remaining 5% of yet-to-be connected areas, said the network.

“Setting a £3,400 (or similar) connection cost threshold will impose a cost penalty on many rural consumers, which in certain cases could be very high.
“The USO could be especially unfair to the farming community.

“We do not think it is either fair or reasonable to make consumers responsible for all of the costs above such a threshold.

“This will result in some deciding to forego a broadband connection and will particularly hit low income rural households or financially marginal rural businesses.”

The network added: We conclude that the proposed threshold is both fundamentally unfair to the final 5% of consumers and is likely to be unworkable in the real world.”

Ofcom said it existed to make communications markets work for everyone. One of the ways it did so was by conducting research to find out about the customer experience across the UK.

Each year, Ofcom reports its findings in its flagship Connected Nations report – which provides a snapshot of the state of the UK communication network.

To inform this and wider work, Ofcom is calling for volunteers to sign up to join its expanded research panel of broadband customers.

Ofcom said it was “particularly looking to sign up more people who live in rural areas in order find out more about the challenges they face”.

Potential participants are encouraged to sign up via Ofcom’s partner’s website at https://signups.samknows.com/ofcom/

Volunteers who meet Ofcom’s sample requirements will be sent a unit to plug into a mains socket and connect to their home broadband router. …”