Digital and Broadband

Although many rural communities have benefitted from broadband, overall they have fallen well short of advantages for most urban areas and the situation in rural areas is noticeably inequitable. High speed broadband improves access to services, quality of life, and business viability – one third of Britons working from home now live in rural areas. Most urban communities take for granted Internet banking, downloading music, eBay and BBC iPlayer; benefits that we would like to see everywhere.

RCAN members have a key role locally in assisting in the development of local broadband plans. Contact your RCAN member for more details of how they can assist in the development of projects.

For more information, please contact Paul Dixon, Team Leader, Services/Transport, Broadband and Fuel Poverty .

Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) – a team within DCMS – was set up to deliver the Government’s broadband strategy, bringing superfast broadband to all parts of the UK.

BDUK’s main role is to allocate and distribute £530m of funding, to bring superfast broadband to the third of UK homes and businesses which won’t be provided for by the broadband market and would otherwise miss out.