Broadband and connectivity

Winter, with receding daylight hours, always tends to put more pressure on bandwidth in a family household – whether that’s due to online shopping, streaming services for films and TV, or connecting online with family and friends.

Fortunately, the government is determined to get to grips with delivering improved broadband, especially to rural and hard to reach areas, which is set out in the National Infrastructure Strategy.

More than a third of UK premises now have access to gigabit-capable connections, up from 9% in July 2019 (when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister). But here in South Shropshire, a mere 5.5% of us can access such speeds.

While gigabit broadband, with download speeds of up to 1,000Mbps, is not necessarily needed by every household, it does show we have a long way to go to meet the government’s target of a minimum of 85% gigabit capable coverage across the UK by 2025, with a rollout of as close to 100% as soon as possible after that.

That is not to say broadband in South Shropshire has not improved. Superfast broadband is now available to 80% of households and businesses here, and the average download speed for the constituency is 38.6mbps. But we lag behind the UK average, thanks to faster commercial rollout and gigabit speeds in urban areas. So we need to see a step change improvement.

The good news is that the government committed to target rural areas for better broadband, when announcing earlier this year that Shropshire and Telford would be within the first phase of the national Gigabit Programme. This is being delivered by BDUK, who are consulting regularly with Connecting Shropshire on what needs to be done to start the roll-out to ensure this upgrade work progresses as quickly as possible.

For some users, their experience of broadband at home does not match the speeds they were led to believe they would receive when purchasing their contract. Ofcom recognised this as a problem, and have taken steps to ensure broadband providers advertise realistic speeds. If your service doesn’t deliver the speeds you were promised by your provider, get in touch with them. If the problem is on their network and they can’t fix it within 30 days, they must let you leave your contract without having to pay an early exit fee. Ofcom’s guidance for switching can be found here.

I am also aware of some persistent issues of poor mobile signal in South Shropshire, which prove doubly frustrating, given it is now possible to access home broadband via a 4G or 5G hub, if your signal is good enough – potentially eliminating the need for a fibre broadband contract altogether, depending on your usage and speed requirements.

The government has signed a £1bn deal with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to deliver a Shared Rural Network – sharing investment costs to increase 4G mobile coverage throughout the UK to 95 per cent by the end of 2025, irrespective of what network provider people use. Operators have already announced the first 333 upgrades and 54 new sites in England – with 8 more masts in South Shropshire from EE. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will shortly be announcing the next stage of the programme.

The pandemic has proved the need for good mobile and broadband coverage, irrespective of whether we live in rural or urban areas. So this investment in South Shropshire’s digital infrastructure is extremely welcome. It will transform the ability for many of us to work where we live. I shall continue to press our case for rural  roll-out.