Rural areas set to miss out on fast broadband speeds

Rural areas could be set to miss out on the new pledge set out by the government, which will require that households receive minimum speeds of 10Mbps by 2020.

This confession comes from minister Ed Vaizey, who said that there were parts of the UK where installation costs would be simply too much and that the government would not be willing to cover their upgrade costs.

The confession came to light when maps were released showing that 10 per cent of Devon and Somerset would not be able to be connected to superfast connections.

In the announcement, Mr Vaizey admitted that: “I'm not going to guarantee you that every single premise is going to get 10Mbps, but it should be potentially possible.”

However, rather than ruling these properties out entirely, the minister suggested that there could be a cap introduced. Under the proposal, the government would subsidise up to a certain point, then either the internet service providers would step in to fund the rest of the costs or the bill would be footed by the house owner.

Campaigner for Broadband for Rural Devon and Somerset and councillor Graham Long said that the government was failing in its obligations: “What is on offer is a voucher system for wireless or satellite from service providers. The minister's comments don't surprise me, because they don't want to put more money into broadband, they want industry to finance it.

“There are already lots of villages like mine who won't know whether we will be in the 95 per cent until June at the earliest. We are a year behind everywhere else in Britain, and there are going to be 'haves' and 'have-nots'."

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(Image: Kings Sutton)