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. …”

The UK is experiencing an entrepreneurial revolution, but the fact is that it is near impossible to launch a startup with a couple of employees in a converted barn with a connection of 2Mbps or less. With a connection of 1Gbps, however, a whole new world of opportunities opens up.

Rural businesses are struggling to recruit young people
It’s important to stress that a more demanding target should not mean reinforcing the market position of the incumbent, BT, or even a particular type of technology. Getting ultra-fast speeds means enabling competing firms to enter the market on a level playing field.

One of the best examples of how to do this comes from a surprising source: Lithuania. It has the third highest upload speed in the world, as well as the global number one ranking for ICT infrastructure. This came about because, in 2004, Lithuania forced its equivalent of BT to give rivals full open access to the physical infrastructure of ducts and poles at a reasonable cost. This led to an explosion of investment by the alternative network providers, and they rocketed up the league tables as a result.

If we fail to rise to the challenge on broadband, we will miss out on the exciting technological developments of the next decade. Self-driving cars, virtual and enhanced reality, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, 5G and above all, cloud-based services, simply won’t happen without the speed, universal reach and reliability of a network that has untied itself from the copper cables of the past.”

However, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport confirmed that homes in some hard to reach rural areas will only be connected “on request”, and may be asked to cover installation costs above £3,500.

Tiverton and Honiton MP Neil Parish, who has repeatedly lobbied the Government over the provision of broadband in rural areas, has expressed concern about these qualifications.

“[I want to know] how we will get coverage to more rural areas. We’ve got problems in my constituency and across the Westcountry generally,” he said. “I will be pushing ministers for a better deal for rural areas.”

South West Devon MP Gary Streeter added that he is “confident” the measures will guarantee connectivity for 95% of households, but he “retains concerns” about how suppliers will reach the final 5%.

“[This is] is of immense importance to our region. We will have to continue to press the government on this,” he said.”

The pledge to provide high speed broadband to every home in the UK has been abandoned by the government in an attempt to save money.

Instead fast broadband will only be provided in rural areas on request because, according to a Whitehall document, “it is unlikely that everyone will want to be connected”.

Campaigners and MPs accused the Government of giving up on providing people in the countryside with a fast internet connection.

Many of those affected live in parts of England which otherwise have a good a connection such as Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset and Kent.

The Telegraph is launching a campaign urging ministers to provide broadband to more families living in harder to reach rural areas.

Superfast speeds are on course to reach 95 per cent of the UK by the end of next year through a roll-out programme run by BT and the Government

A year ago, then-Culture Secretary Sajid Javid acknowledged that reaching the “final five per cent” in rural areas would be “challenging”.

But he said: “The benefits of superfast broadband are clear from increasing productivity and economic growth to transforming family entertainment at home.

“We hope to find ways in which those benefits can be brought to even more people.”

Last November David Cameron, the Prime Minister, announced a new law to make a broadband connection a “universal service obligation” to give people the legal right to a 10megabits (MB) per second connection no matter where they live.

However, according to a consultation on the new law, ministers have given up on delivering superfast broadband automatically to the “final five per cent”.

It said: “It is unlikely that everyone will want to be connected, even if that option is made available to them, and so we do not believe that an additional broadband roll-out programme at this time is proportionate or would represent value for money.”

It also emerged that people living in the countryside will have to pay for any additional cost of connecting them to a good broadband speed.

Ed Vaizey, the Culture minister, admitted “there might be an element where individuals would have to contribute in order to get it” a basic 10MB speed.

He told MPs: “It is important that there would be a potential cap on the amount of public funding or industry funding contribution.

“If a particular connection was going to cost many, many thousands of pounds, as is the case with a landline, you might have to have a cap on the per-premises funding that would come under the USO.”

The plans were attacked by MPs and campaigners, who said it would “leave behind” people who live in the countryside.

Grant Shapps MP, the former Conservative party chairman, said: “We need a universal service obligation which provides the same minimum broadband speed whether you are in town or country.

“Bureaucratic pen-pushers seem content to think it is OK to leave people in the countryside in the internet slow lane.

“It’s a known fact that once people have high speed broadband their usage expands as they discover new ways to work from home, download smart TV and generally benefit from enhanced communication.

“We need to take the simple view that broadband is the fourth utility and accept that everyone has a right to their super-fast connection.”

Countryside Alliance head of policy Sarah Lee added: “This is very disappointing.

“The whole point of a universal service obligation is that it applies to everyone, and this one was suggested specifically to ensure that the most rural, hard-to-reach properties will enjoy workable broadband speeds.

“High speed broadband is an essential service for modern life and we believe a lack of broadband capacity in rural areas is holding back the countryside, socially and economically.”

“It is worth sticking with plans to bring high-speed internet to every corner of Britain?

For those who live, farm or run businesses in Cumbria, east Yorkshire or the West Country, these are frustrating times. For years they have lagged behind urban Britain in access to high-speed broadband and all that flows through it. Their frustration may be about to boil over.

This government and its coalition predecessor have in principle grasped the importance of investing in internet infrastructure. Two years ago David Cameron called broadband the “fourth utility”.

Last year Sajid Javid, then secretary of state for culture, media and sport, undertook to extend “superfast” access beyond the 95 per cent of premises who have been promised it by 2017. To this end he announced funding for a series of pilot projects, using novel technologies and business models where conventional ones had not attracted private investment, to bring 21st-century broadband to the furthest reaches of this country.

This admirable ambition is now in danger of being shelved. Ed Vaizey, Mr Javid’s successor, hinted as much last month. A government consultation document released since then argues that reaching the last 5 per cent would not represent value for money. Further, it suggests that people in remote areas would be unlikely to take up the offer of superfast broadband even it was available.

Providing high-speed connections for windblown islands and peninsulas is more expensive on a per capita basis than for blocks of flats and offices. Even so, pulling the plug on superfast for all would be infuriating for those directly affected and a false economy for the rest of us.

More than a million premises hoping for faster broadband may be denied it. Lives are not threatened, but livelihoods are. Broadband has acquired so many roles so quickly that businesses depend on it to expand. Investors base their decisions on access to it. Schools depend on it to thrive and farmers, the elderly and those on benefits need it as their principle connection to public services that are increasingly provided online.

“The benefits of superfast broadband are clear,” Mr Javid said last year. The pilot projects he championed are yielding progress. Their technologies, using mobile and satellite telephony where landlines are uneconomic, have global potential. It would be a mistake for both the public and private sectors to give up on the “final 5 per cent”. It would be an even graver blunder, however, for the government and regulators to use arguments about the 5 per cent as an excuse to neglect the 95.

The average British broadband connection speed rose last year by 27 per cent to nearly 29 megabits per second (Mbps). This is impressive by past standards but it masks huge variations and a fundamental structural problem. British broadband is a hybrid product of privatisation and piecemeal regulation, overwhelmingly dominated by BT and its Openreach subsidiary.

Yesterday BT (re)announced a £6 billion investment in its network. Its rivals, who depend on it, protest that this is not enough. They have a point. More for its shareholders’ sake than its customers, BT is investing in copper-based technology rather than state-of-the-art fibre optics.

Some 21% of people who are moving home said that they wanted to live in a village, making it easily the most popular type of location, compared to 14% for a market town and only 12% for either a big city or a suburb, according to the study by Strutt & Parker.

The Housing Futures Report found that broadband and mobile connections are essential to rural life. Access to broadband was a key factor for 49% of those intending to move to a village, while 38% highlighted mobile connectivity.

It reveals that with 60% want to be able to walk to shops, 48% close to local transport and 45% near to medical facilities.

‘The UK might seem to be focused on urbanisation but we believe a new, overlooked trend is set to shape Britain’s housing market over the coming decades and this is the desire to move back to rural locations,’ said Stephanie McMahon, head of research at Strutt & Parker.

The shift away from cities is being driven by people looking for neighbourhood safety at 86%, while 58% want space between neighbours and 48% are looking for a strong community feel.

‘The expansion of broadband and mobile communications has seen a greater uptake of working from home in rural locations compared to urban areas. It seems that the same factors that once drove urbanisation, improving economic and social conditions, are now inspiring the village revival,’ added McMahon.

The report shows a significant increase in respondents looking for rental accommodation. 10% of those wanting to move to a village would live in a professionally managed private rental unit, up from 1% in 2013.

The South East, South West and North East are the three leading destinations for people who are intending to move in the next five years. The South West’s appeal as a lifestyle and retirement location is set to continue attracting moves from the South East and London and with increased government investment in the Northern Powerhouse, the North West is likely to become more attractive.”