HS2 Select Committee Calls for Train Project to Improve UK Broadband

The High Speed Rail Committee has published its final report and called on the Government’s expensive High Speed Two (HS2) project, which aims to build a new rail link between London and the Midlands, to do more to improve broadband connectivity along the route.

The HS2 project is hugely expensive (estimates vary between around £50bn and £80bn) and along the way more than a few people have suggested that the money could be better spent on improving national broadband and road connectivity.

However it’s often overlooked that HS2 will also include the construction of a new “broadband superhighway” along the route (here), where high capacity fibre optic cables could be laid. But what hasn’t been clear is just what kind of benefit consumers can expect to receive from this or indeed whether the new cables will reach every part of that route or only certain areas.

Today’s final report has moved to tackle this concern, particularly with regards to the lack of specifics. In fact it notes that the bill only makes “passive provision for installation of broadband infrastructure on the route, but not actual installation such as ducting and cabling.”

Furthermore the committee found that several areas along the route, which will not stand to gain directly from the railway itself, lack good broadband and have been pressing the case for better Internet access to help “mitigate … some of the pain of [HS2’s] construction.”

High Speed Rail Committee Recommendation

The Government has said that commercial need and a commercially justifiable proposition would require to be demonstrated. It told us that most areas between London and Birmingham are planned to be “fairly well served” by fibre broadband providers, adding that it might be more efficient to provide more poorly served areas with broadband access via cabling not from the HS2 route but other rail routes, or road routes.

The Government accepted that this might not be the case everywhere. It noted that in the areas where it is not there would still need to be a demand for a commercially viable broadband service. The Promoter said it would be meeting the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the telecommunications industry in May 2016 to define the market, and level of demand.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport can establish which areas within, say, 3km of the HS2 route are unlikely to have superfast broadband provision and good 4G mobile telephone coverage by 2018 (the year after anticipated start of construction). Few if any of those living close to the route will benefit directly from the HS2 project.

The Government is wrong to believe that the test for providing broadband and mobile access is whether the telecommunications industry can be offered a commercially viable market in such localities. If commercial propositions are not speedily forthcoming the Government should fund the provision.

We do not direct whence the cabling comes; industry operators and Government can make a commercial assessment of that. We direct that, one way or another, the provision of a modern railway is to be associated with achieving modern high-speed communication along its route.

Mind you it’s worth considering that even if the Government choose to accept the above recommendation then it would still be many years before the benefit is felt and by then the problem might have been resolved, at least for some of the areas.

Phase One of the HS2 project is not even expected to start until 2017/18 and it won’t complete until around 2026, with the full project only being completed by around 2032/33.

Side Note: The above picture is not of an HS2 train.