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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their broadband strategy includes ensuring that customers in rural areas have a choice of broadband providers that are not dependent on the BT network.

The Government wants to encourage competition and investment in the UK broadband market, as we have set out in our Statement of Strategic Priorities to Ofcom. As a result, there are now over 80 providers delivering gigabit broadband in the UK, providing real choice to consumers at both the wholesale and retail level.

Ofcom is responsible for regulating the level of competition in the market and has the power to intervene where necessary to reduce the barriers for entry to new providers. In the case of Openreach, Ofcom has designated that it holds Significant Market Power status, and has therefore introduced a number of remedies such as requiring Openreach to allow other providers to use its network of ducts and poles. These remedies are designed to enable competing providers to build their networks at a lower cost, which makes competition more likely.

The Government is investing £5 billion in Project Gigabit to ensure hard-to-reach areas where providers are not expected to deploy broadband commercially are not left behind. There is already significant interest in Project Gigabit: for example, Gigabit Vouchers have been extremely successful with over 70 telecoms providers currently actively building in challenging rural areas. Moreover, procurements funded by Project Gigabit will require network infrastructure to be open and accessible to third parties, such as communication providers, to provide competing retail offers to the consumer.