Recommendation 11

Good quality access to online services will rely of course on the roll-out of broadband, overseen by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. We noted that the BBC’s universal service commitments could not be met with current broadband provision.16 The BBC highlighted that with a perfect broadband service, audiences could get much better functionality than with traditional broadcast TV.17 But broadband roll-out is of course a much wider issue than just concerning the BBC and the BBC is not responsible for any of the build out. The BBC also said that affordability of broadband, that is the cost to households of purchasing contracts, was an issue.18 Shortly after our session with the BBC we took evidence from the Department on a range of matters, including progress with gigabit broadband roll-out. It acknowledged that the roll-out is critical to the BBC’s plans for an internet-only future, that discussions were already in train and it will expect to have further discussions on it as part of the charter renewal. We will continue to keep a close eye on progress, in particular for providing people living in harder to reach areas with decent broadband coverage.19 Funding the digital strategy