Superfast broadband ‘is now reaching 95% of UK premises’

The Government’s pledge to give 95% of the country access to superfast broadband has been met, the Culture Secretary has said.

Citing the latest figures from independent advice website thinkbroadband.com, Matt Hancock said millions more homes and businesses could get online at speeds of at least 24mbps.

Mr Hancock said the manifesto pledge to reach 95% of premises before the end of 2017 was achieved in December.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport estimated the £1.7 billion rollout had created 50,000 new jobs and generated an extra £8.9bn in turnover in the economies of the areas which benefited

between 2013 and 2016.

According to thinkbroadband.com, speeds of 24mbps or faster are available to around 27.5 million out of 28m premises in the UK.

In England 95.5% of properties can get those speeds, while the figure dips to 94.2% in Wales, 93.4% in Scotland and 86.7% in Northern Ireland, the website’s data shows.

BT Openreach, which looks after the country’s broadband network, aims to deliver broadband for every home and business which is fast enough to allow multiple video streams on one connection by 2020.

Clive Selley, Openreach chief executive, said: “We’re determined to get the whole of Britain hooked up to decent broadband speeds.”