Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many households do not have access to high speed internet; and what his Department's definition is of high speed internet.

The department does not use the term “high speed internet”, but uses the term “superfast” to denote speeds capable of 24Mbps and more. There are c.30 million households across the UK, and the superfast coverage against the 24Mbps definition is 96.8%. Against the EU definition, which is 30Mbps and above, coverage across the UK is 96.5%.

In regard to households that do not have access to high speed internet, Ofcom have defined a “decent broadband” connection as being able to access 10Mbps download speed and 1Mbps upload. According to Thinkbroadband as of 16 October, 1.4% of UK premises have speeds of less than 10Mbps.