Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans her Department has to support the provision of affordable, reliable broadband to households in rural constituencies that remain outside commercial fibre rollout plans and face high connection costs; what funding and delivery timescales are available for those households; and how the needs of older and vulnerable residents who rely on telecare are taken into account.

Project Gigabit is the government’s programme to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to UK premises that are not included in suppliers' commercial plans. This is in support of the government’s objective of reaching at least 99% of UK premises by 2032.

For Boston and Skegness, approximately 9,590 premises are included in a Project Gigabit Contract with Quickline covering Lincolnshire and East Riding of Yorkshire, of which approximately 3,890 premises have already been given access to a gigabit-capable connection. This contract will deliver until 2028.

Building Digital UK (BDUK) regularly publishes premises level data on current and future coverage, as well as premises in Project Gigabit planned delivery in England and Wales: Open Market Review (OMR) determinations and BDUK plans - GOV.UK.

For premises where a fixed gigabit-capable connection may be too expensive to deploy, alternative technologies such as fixed wireless access (FWA) and satellite broadband can offer reliable connectivity options. The government continues to monitor and support the development of this market, including encouraging spectrum releases and ground station deployments, with many remote premises are already adopting these services.

Telecare can be provided over both broadband and mobile connections. Most telecare is currently being upgraded by providers to 4G enabled telecare, with some using broadband as back-up or alternative form of connectivity. Customers that use broadband enabled telecare can use this on both copper, mixed fibre and copper, and fibre connections.