Broadband is now the “4th utility service”, and people and businesses in rural areas like ours have a great dependency on it. Last week I spoke in a debate on rural phone and broadband connectivity- an important issue for us in Teignbridge.
The Government has already made a significant financial contribution towards ensuring that we achieve 95% superfast broadband coverage by 2017, but more still needs to be done. I therefore urged the Minister to step up the pressure on the service provider – in our case BT – to manage the rollout more effectively and to provide more accurate and timely information to people who are affected.
I also emphasised that dealing with the last 5% of businesses and households not covered and ‘hardest to help’ should be the priority. This is where we need to see more innovation from the service provider. They should work with local communities on creative solutions including voucher schemes and pilot technology, rather than pushing them to the back of the rollout programme.
There is a growing number of Conservative MPs lobbying Ministers hard on solving the broadband challenge, and I will continue to be one of them.