Drew Hendry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Drew Hendry on 2016-09-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of UK premises has access to ultrafast broadband; and what steps she is taking to increase the number of such properties.

Matt Hancock

There is no agreed definition of ultrafast broadband. According to the independent broadband information website thinkbroadband.com – who define ultrafast as download speeds of more than 100mbps – approximately 50% of UK premises have access to ultrafast broadband.

Virgin Media have announced plans to extend their coverage by up to 4 million premises by 2019 through their Project Lightning roll-out. This roll-out has funding support from the UK Guarantee Scheme which has been put in place the government. BT also plan to make available ultrafast speeds to 10 million premises by 2020. Smaller providers, such as CityFibre, Gigaclear and Hyperoptic, are also investing to provide ultrafast services.