The Government has come up with an “out of this world” solution to the UK’s increasingly troublesome connectivity issue, with some of the country’s most remote homes and businesses set to be connected to better broadband, beamed to Earth by satellite.
The move follows CBI president Brian McBride bemoaning the fact that 1.5 million UK households still do not have Internet access, meaning the UK is in eighth place in the OECD Connectivity Index.
Now ministers have revealed that new trials will see the extent to which satellites can be used to deliver high-speed connections to more than a dozen “very hard to reach” locations – the less than 1% of sites which are too difficult to upgrade with physical cables in more extreme locations such as mountainous areas or small islands.
Bizarrely, a 12th century abbey in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park is one of the buildings set to benefit from the scheme, as well as a scout camping site in Snowdonia and a Lake District mountain rescue base.
All will have equipment installed that allows them to link up to a satellites orbiting the globe and benefit from broadband up to ten times faster than is currently available to them.
Following the trials, the Government said it will consider the viability of using satellite technology to connect very hard to reach homes and businesses across the UK.
It comes as the Government has signed its biggest contract to date under Project Gigabit, a £5bn programme to roll out gigabit-capable connections to hard-to-reach areas.
The £108m contract, awarded to Northern Ireland-based provider Fibrus, will connect up to 60,000 rural homes and businesses in Cumbria which might have otherwise missed out on upgrades to faster gigabit speeds.
Gigabit-capable broadband networks allow communities to work, stream and browse seamlessly with none of the disruptions associated with ageing copper networks.
Ministers are patting themselves on the back amid claims that more than 72% of the UK can access gigabit connections, up from just 6% in early 2019. The Government insists this is due to its own plan to drive investment in rollout and bust the barriers holding back the industry from doing so at full pace.
Digital Secretary Michelle Donelan said: “High-speed broadband beamed to earth from space could be the answer to the connectivity issues suffered by people in premises stuck in the digital slow lane.
“Ensuring everyone can get a quality Internet connection is crucial to our levelling up plans and these trials aim to find a solution to the prohibitively high cost of rolling out cables to far-flung locations.”
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