Bridget Phillipson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bridget Phillipson on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the cost of broadband access for primary and secondary schools.

Mr Sam Gyimah

£1.7 billion of public funding has been committed to support improvements in broadband services across the UK. The Superfast Broadband Programme aims to make superfast broadband available to 95 per cent of UK premises by 2017.

Costs will vary from school to school depending on location and how much they use the internet. The type of connectivity that the government funded broadband programme needs will not be suitable for secondary schools. They will need a dedicated connection because of their high bandwidth demands. The Department for Education does not hold information about the cost of broadband access for schools.