Government urged to subsidise rural roll-out of fibre broadband

RURAL communities risk being left behind if the Government fails to subsidise the rollout of fibre broadband across the country, ministers have been warned.

The National Infrastructure Commis- sion said the Government needs to go “further and faster” by subsidising the introduction of fibre broadband in rural areas to replace ageing copper wiring. Only 4 per cent of the UK has access to full-fibre broadband, compared with 70 per cent of homes and businesses in Spain, the commission said.

In Japan and South Korea, 95 per cent have access to the broadband, which is the fastest available and works via fibre-optic cables that transmit faster than traditional telephone lines.

Sir John Armitt, the chairman of the commission, said there was a risk that current plans would benefit only towns and cities. His report, due to be released next month, will recommend that the Government must intervene to ensure broadband is extended to people in remote and rural communities.

Schemes have already begun to install fibre broadband by firms including Cityfibre and Vodafone, Virgin Media and BT, but these programmes are less likely to be commercially viable in rural areas.

The Government must initially concentrate on these more remote areas most likely to be left out by private firms, the commission said.

Ministers should introduce a National Broadband Plan by next spring to install full-fibre broadband to 15million homes and businesses by 2025, 25 million by 2030 and across the country by 2033, the commission will argue.

Sir John said: “In the future, access to full-fibre broadband will be absolutely essential to our daily lives…[the Government] needs to go even further and faster, if rural communities are not to be left behind.”

A spokesman for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: “We’ve committed to deliver a nationwide full-fibre network by 2033, and will shortly set out our plans in the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review.” ♦ BT should be broken up because it has an “unfair advantage” which is “harming consumers”, Dominic Raab, the housing minister, has said.

He called for BT’S Openreach division, which owns and maintains the broadband cable network, to be split off into a separate company. He said that at present BT can “shape the network” to suit its own interests.