190,000 UK properties can’t access broadband speeds to meet modern needs

Almost 200,000 “forgotten homes” across the UK are being left behind in the government’s digital revolution, unable to get broadband speeds deemed the minimum to meet a modern family’s needs.

The telecoms regulator Ofcom has said that 190,000 mostly rural homes and offices, about 0.6% of all properties, still cannot access “decent” broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps.

This is the minimum speed deemed necessary to cope with modern needs, from downloading a film on Sky to streaming music or TV services from Netflix to Disney+.

Ofcom’s annual Connected Nations report estimates that there are 119,000 premises in England that cannot get access to decent broadband. The figure is 34,000 in Scotland, 18,000 in Wales and 19,000 in Northern Ireland.

Last year the Commons environment, food and rural affairs select committee said rural inhabitants risked becoming “second class” citizens in the digital revolution, as people in urban areas benefit from next-generation broadband and 5G mobile.

Ofcom’s latest report estimates that across England, Scotland and Wales more than 39,000 homes cannot get access to either a “decent” broadband service or good 4G mobile phone coverage indoors.

Addressing the UK’s status as a global laggard in rolling out next-generation full-fibre broadband, making it available across the country by 2025 was a key promise of Boris Johnson’s election manifesto. Since then, the government has watered down its ambitions to 85% coverage, including homes that can access similar gigabit speed technology via 5G network signals and copper wires as well as full fibre.

In the government’s spending review last month, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said only £1.2bn of a £5bn fund to subsidise the rollout of gigabit broadband to the hardest to reach premises would now be made available over the next five years.

Ofcom revealed that 18% of UK homes, about 5m, now have the ability to get full fibre broadband, an 80% year-on-year increase. Nearly 8 m UK homes, 27% of the total, can now access gigabit speed broadband.

“For millions of families this year, life during lockdown would have been even more difficult without reliable broadband to work, learn, play and see loved ones,” said Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s network and communications director. “So it’s encouraging that future proof, gigabit broadband is now available in a quarter of homes.”