Op-ed by Matt Warman MP – Next Steps for the UK Gigabit Broadband Programme

The pandemic has led to the migration of vast swathes of our daily lives to the internet, accelerating a process which many forecasters predicted wasn’t coming for another few decades.

The £1.8 billion broadband investment from this government over the last few years has been instrumental in preparing the nation for mass digitisation. It made superfast broadband of 24 megabits per second (mbps) or more available to the vast majority of the country, more than 96 per cent of the UK. It meant millions of families had the bandwidth to work remotely, keep in touch and stay entertained during the necessary lockdowns. But there remains an unacceptable digital divide in the UK with poor coverage or none at all in too many hard-to-reach areas.

As we build back better in the wake of coronavirus, broadband will be the bedrock of our levelling up agenda. It’s why we’re investing £5 billion to tackle the problem – the largest sum ever invested in broadband in this country.

We are confident that by 2025 the telecoms industry will have upgraded the majority of the UK’s cable internet networks to the extent that more than four in five UK premises will access much faster broadband capable of speeds of 1,000 mbps or one gigabit.

These lighting fast speeds will fuel our innovators and wealth creators wherever they are in the country. They will support thousands of high-paid, high-skilled jobs and promote long-term business investment. And they will underpin the dynamic commercial spirit we need to sell new British ideas around the world on the web.

Last week Ofcom revealed that nearly 1 in 3 UK premises can now access gigabit broadband. This is up from one in ten last year and by the end of 2021 more than half of the country will be connected to gigabit-capable networks.

It is the final 20 per cent of the country, where broadband firms won’t make profit from building their networks, where we have a responsibility to step in and stop people from being left behind.

This week, we are setting out how we will fulfil that responsibility, as we publish the blueprint for how we will start to spend this record £5 billion through our UK Gigabit Programme.

Our ambitious procurement strategy, which has been shared with industry and local councils, shows how we plan to kick off work in 2021 to boost commercial rollout of gigabit to the first one million premises.

It includes demand-led vouchers and new supply-side interventions to secure better connections for homes and businesses in the hard-to-reach twenty per cent. We will divide the country up into both large and small parcels so every telecoms provider – regardless of their size – can bid for contracts and prioritise people with slow speeds

As well as contracts covering vast regions for big suppliers, there will be more bitesize areas of the UK up for grabs with contracts designed to stimulate and grow the UK’s smaller or specialist rural broadband providers. So as we upgrade the nation to gigabit, we will drive competition, boost regional economic growth and create new jobs in the telecoms industry as we go.

We want broadband providers to demonstrate how they can go faster while maintaining value for public money. Last month’s National Infrastructure Strategy outlined how the government is going to work with industry to target a minimum of 85 per cent gigabit coverage by 2025.

It set out the timeline for how the first tranche of the £5 billion we have promised will be made available. This £1.2 billion reflects what suppliers have told us they can deliver but we stand ready to release more of the £5 billion if they come forward with credible plans to go further. Capital is not a constraint and we will continue to push to get as close as possible to nationwide gigabit coverage by 2025.

At a time of unprecedented need for good connectivity, it is our national mission to go gigabit and deliver a truly digital Britain, where every home and business has access to the fastest internet speeds. I am pleased to be kicking off the process to get the job done.

– Matt Warman – The UK Government’s Minister for Digital Infrastructure.