Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Thirty-Second Report - Delivering gigabitcapable broadband
Public Accounts Committee
HC 743
Published 19 January 2022
Recommendations
2
The Department has so far been overly reliant on the contributions of commercial suppliers in...
Recommendation
The Department has so far been overly reliant on the contributions of commercial suppliers in improving gigabit coverage. The Department is reliant on suppliers to deliver gigabit coverage to 80% of UK premises without subsidy. Between May and October 2021, …
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HM Treasury
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Conclusions (26)
3
Conclusion
We are not convinced by the Department’s assertion that it will meet its target delivery of a minimum of 85% by 2025 despite having signed no new infrastructure subsidy contracts for Project Gigabit. The Department’s previous target proved to be unachievable. Despite revising the overall target, the Department’s target dates …
4
Conclusion
We are disappointed that the Department has still not taken significant action to remove barriers to rolling out Project Gigabit. Despite our recommendation earlier this year, the Department has yet to secure the legislative and policy changes that industry deems necessary to address major barriers to delivering gigabit infrastructure at …
5
Conclusion
The Department’s approach to rolling out gigabit risks perpetuating digital inequality across the UK. The Department contends that it is taking an “Outside- In” approach to gigabit infrastructure procurement. As part of this approach, the Department identifies areas which it does not expect it to be viable for commercial providers …
6
Conclusion
The Department does not have a detailed plan to ensure that those in the very hardest to reach areas are not being left behind. The Department’s commitment to delivering 85% coverage by 2025 and full coverage by 2030 does not include those premises it has identified as the very hardest …
1
Conclusion
We took evidence from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (the Department) on its progress to date in achieving its target of reaching a minimum of 85% nationwide coverage of gigabit-capable broadband by 2025.
7
Conclusion
In our report of 8 January 2021, we recommended that the Department should clearly set out what activities it intended to complete and by when to achieve its revised targets. As part of this, we recommended that it set out the final dates by which key milestones must be reached …
8
Conclusion
In changing its target, it has also made changes to the type of technology it plans to use to achieve gigabit broadband rollout.19 In 2019, the Department revised its target from full fibre to “gigabit-capable” broadband. Some stakeholders considered this to be a watering down of the target because they …
9
Conclusion
In its letter to us ahead of our evidence session, the Department told us that there had been a rapid increase in nationwide gigabit coverage to 57% coverage in October 2021, up from 34% in November 2020.23 However, the most recent publicly available data from Ofcom put nationwide coverage at …
10
Conclusion
The Department expects commercial operators will supply broadband infrastructure where profitable, and that this will provide up to 80% of the UK’s coverage.27 To achieve the additional coverage needed to meet its 85% target, the Department plans to provide subsidies in the form of a gigabit voucher scheme28 and the …
11
Conclusion
The Department has yet to sign the gigabit infrastructure contracts with commercial suppliers under which it would provide public subsidy for them to build in areas that would otherwise not get coverage as they are less commercially viable.31 The dates by 22 Q 17, Virgin Media O2 bolsters future network …
12
Conclusion
The Department told us that the reason it had yet to sign any new gigabit infrastructure contracts was largely that commercial operators hadaccelerated their plans for expanding gigabit coverage very rapidly. It explained that this has meant that it needed to re-plan on the basis that the private sector has …
13
Conclusion
We asked the Department about concerns among some of our constituents who are feeling increasingly left behind as a result of private sector roll-out to the more commercially viable parts of constituencies. We asked it why its planning was slipping even further despite the procurement process having been made easier …
14
Conclusion
In our January 2021 report we concluded that the Department had failed to make meaningful progress in tackling barriers faced by operators in maximising gigabit connectivity. We noted that it had yet to secure the legislative and policy changes that industry deemed necessary for removing major barriers at pace and …
15
Conclusion
The Department’s answers during our more recent evidence session suggested that it is still not making progress at pace in tackling barriers to gigabit roll out. For example, the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act 2021 (TILPA) received Royal Assent on 15 March 2021. This legislation was designed to amend the …
16
Conclusion
The Department also held a technical consultation on the regulations needed to implement the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act from June to August 2021. However, it has not yet published either the findings of the consultation or its response to these.48 Similarly, the Department is still analysing feedback on the …
17
Conclusion
Stakeholders also suggested that there were areas where the Department’s approach to removing barriers to rolling out gigabit-capable infrastructure could be strengthened further.53 This was particularly the case regarding “wayleaves,” which are contractual agreements between landowners and telecommunications providers about the right to access property in order to install and …
18
Conclusion
We asked the Department when we will see progress on the ground with regards to wayleaves. It told us that although the Electronics Communications Code, which is where the wayleaves issue is addressed, was reformed in 2017, it can go further in ensuring that negotiations between operators and site providers …
19
Conclusion
The government’s decision in July 2020 to reduce its dependency on technology originating from certain high-risk vendors could introduce delays and additional expense to nationwide roll-out.61 The Department estimated that the removal of high-risk vendors’ 52 DRB0004 DCMS recall (Broadband), Internet Service Providers’ Association, 4 November, p. 2 and DRB0009 …
20
Conclusion
In our report in January 2021, we found that the Department was still developing its £5 billion programme to subsidise roll-out to the hardest to reach 20% of the UK’s 31 million premises and could not tell us when it intends to deliver major milestones, such as the letting of …
21
Conclusion
We asked the Department why it had not just pressed ahead with the areas that it already knows are commercially unviable in the long term. It pointed us to Cumbria which had recently “been procured” and said that Cambridgeshire was also in the same batch. However, these are a small …
22
Conclusion
Those areas that currently have sub-superfast broadband speeds (30 Mbps or below) are more likely to be in the 20% of premises that the Department thinks will be unviable for commercial providers. Only 21% of premises in rural ‘county areas’ currently have access to gigabit-capable connections.68 We heard that some …
23
Conclusion
In our January 2021 report, we found that the most difficult to reach areas were not neatly grouped together, and the Department was not yet clear how it would prioritise its interventions to ensure that they are served. As the Department expects that areas 64 Committee of Public Accounts Committee, …
24
Conclusion
The Department asserted that where there are variations found within urban areas, those pockets which are currently unviable are expected to be covered by commercial operators over the course of the next few years. However, should that not be the case, the Department told us that it will have to …
25
Conclusion
The Department regards 0.3% of premises in the UK as being “very hard to reach, ” and acknowledged that these do not feature within its target of achieving full national coverage by 2030.77 These are typically the most rural and remote premises within the hardest to reach areas of the …
26
Conclusion
At our last evidence session in November 2020, the Department told us that it was assessing the value for money of alternative technologies for delivering the fastest speeds possible to hard-to-reach premises.80 The Department told us that it was looking at what options were available to ensure connectivity in these …
27
Conclusion
We asked why the Department had not made more progress in identifying what would be needed to connect the hardest to reach areas and how it would ensure that people in these aren’t were pushed to the back to the queue.82 The Department told us that “nothing is ruled out”. …