Rural Phone and Broadband Connectivity

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on securing it once again. The real challenge, as we have heard in contributions from across the House, is the remaining 5% and the pitch of frustration our constituents feel when we do not see sufficiently rapid movement, when there seems to be a lack of reliable information and when they cannot get the answers they so desperately need. A significant portion of the e-mails I receive relate to the remaining 5% in south Wiltshire.

Connectivity is an essential part of our daily lives—it is the fourth utility—but it has not existed reliably in some parts of my constituency. Just a few months ago, residents in Bishopstone and Coombe Bissett were cut off completely from the outside world when there was a fault on their main telephone lines. Neither village has mobile phone coverage, so the loss of the connection left elderly residents unable to reach their panic buttons, employees unable to pay their tax bills, and at least one local business on the verge of collapse. This happened four and a half miles from the city of Salisbury. That is why we need to look carefully at all the options that exist at this point in the delivery of the roll-out to maximise broadband, and 4G, coverage.

Rural communities are resilient and innovative, as several colleagues from across the House have said, but we must do more to help them benefit from creative solutions. Two villages in my constituency, Broad Chalke and Winterslow—I thank the Minister for visiting Winterslow a couple of years ago—have benefited from Vodafone’s Rural Open Sure Signal programme, which provides 3G coverage to sparsely populated areas that otherwise would have none. That has had a transformative effect. The simplest tasks, such as schools phoning parents when their children are ill, or lost delivery drivers getting in touch, were impossible without this technology. It is imperative that we continue to look creatively at other solutions that might exist and that we do not offer inferior solutions on the grounds of cost alone, and cost as it is today.

One of my constituents who is a dedicated campaigner for better connectivity in rural areas has lived with satellite broadband for nine years. That system relies on individual packets of data being sent about 44,000 km from a satellite. He tells me that while the system functions well when downloading large files, the delay in these packets of data makes everyday browsing or video streaming very difficult. I therefore urge the Minister to ensure that alternative solutions are also on the table. I am aware that the Government have put £10 million into the pilot schemes in rural areas using different technologies, and that they will be evaluating the success of those different pilot schemes. I echo the comments of hon. Members who said that more needs to be allocated to that initiative, because that is where the last 2% or 3% are going to find their solutions. There are improvements in technology all the time, and the Government need to be right on top of the best solutions as they come into existence.

By sheer coincidence, my constituent had a new 4G mast erected close enough that he could benefit from it. I want to highlight to mobile phone companies, and to the Minister, the immense opportunity that exists in this regard. There are areas of the country that will not be able to benefit from fibre broadband cost-effectively but where 4G could provide an answer. That can be nothing short of transformative for these communities, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) said, for urban areas as well.

I hope the Minister has listened carefully to the intense and sincere speeches that have been made, because there are serious issues for constituents across the country who are so frustrated when they cannot get this matter resolved. We need to make sure that we use the new technologies and that they are delivered as quickly as possible. We should welcome the fact that only 3% of premises in the UK are now suffering speeds below 2 Mb, down from 11% in 2010, but let us not be complacent. Let us do as much as we possibly can to speed up the roll-out for the last 5%, or even the last 2%, who we all intensely fear will never get a solution.