Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to his Department's press release of 11 February 2015, Free wifi to help rail commuters stay connected, and the speech of the Minister for the Cabinet Office at Sprint 15 of 3 February 2015, whether the free train wifi announced in that release will use the infrastructure announced in that speech.

The infrastructure to which the Minister for the Cabinet Office referred is the masts, fibre and cables around the country owned, operated or leased by the public sector.

Free Wi-Fi on trains will be delivered by train-borne equipment and operated using the best available coverage of the mobile networks.

The Government has already agreed licence changes with the mobile network operators to achieve 90% geographic coverage of the mobile networks, which we expect will deliver an improvement to mobile coverage across the rail network. The Government is committed to working with the rail and mobile industries to improve coverage on the rail network including exploring options from the use of the publicly owned assets, where it is appropriate to do so.