Which?, the CBI and FSB have been asked by DCMS to convene an Advisory Group to advise on how best to stimulate demand for gigabit-capable broadband connections across the UK

The Gigabit Take-up Advisory Group (GigaTAG) includes organisations representing the telecoms industry, consumers, businesses and regulators.The GigaTAG is issuing this call for evidence so that other organisations and individuals are able to share their expertise and feed in any existing evidence that they have related to the take-up of gigabit connectivity.

The aims of the call for evidence are to ensure that the GigaTAG takes account of all existing evidence in this area when considering issues related to consumer and business take-up of gigabit connectivity. It will help to ensure that the recommendations it makes are grounded in a strong evidence base from a range of different stakeholders with diverse views.

They welcome evidence from any interested stakeholder focused on the questions below. Respondents do not have to answer all the questions in the consultation if you do not have a view; a short response on just one point is fine. We also welcome any additional views or evidence which go beyond these questions but are related to the take-up of gigabit connectivity.

They are seeking written submissions from a broad range of interested stakeholders. We will also contact some stakeholders to invite them to talk to us about their evidence and views in relation to the areas set out below.

We would welcome responses to these questions by Friday 16 October 2020. Please send these to [email protected].

Please let them know if you wish to respond but are unable to meet this deadline, or if you would like to feed in evidence in an alternative format.

Any responses received will be shared with all organisations within the GigaTAG. They will be used by the GigaTAG to develop policy recommendations and to publish a report summarising the information gathered. The responses may also be published in whole or in part, save for any information that is marked as confidential.

Note that the GigaTAG will ensure that it obtains separate permission before publishing any information that would allow others to identify individuals, including responses from individuals.
Please mark any parts of your response which are confidential. Any information that is marked 'confidential' will be treated as such and not shared more widely than the GigaTAG. They are happy to discuss any concerns around confidentiality.

General questions

• What existing evidence are you aware of in relation to the demand for, and take-up of gigabit connections?
• What do you believe to be the key challenges in relation to ensuring consumer and business take-up of gigabit capable connections? How do you think these challenges can be overcome? We would welcome any evidence that may relate to specific groups of consumers or types of business - such as those who are vulnerable, or those in rural areas.
• What do you believe the key motivations, or ‘pulls’, are for consumers and businesses to encourage adoption of gigabit capable connections? We would welcome any evidence you have to support this.
• What has been done by other countries to encourage the adoption of gigabit capable connections? Are there lessons that we could learn from their approach?
• Are you aware of any successful local schemes in the UK where gigabit connections have been rolled out and had significant local take-up? What do you think enabled these successes? For example, what encouraged demand for these connections, how were concerns overcome? Are there lessons or approaches that could be applied to the UK more widely?

Questions for the telecoms industry

• What evidence and insights do you have of ways in which your customers can be supported and encouraged to take-up gigabit capable connections?
• What role do you think the telecoms industry can play in helping to support take-up of gigabit connections by both consumers and businesses? What challenges has the industry faced?
• What role do you think other organisations and the Government can play in helping to encourage take-up?
• Do you have any examples or evidence from previous connectivity upgrades on how to support take-up effectively e.g. lessons from superfast broadband take-up?
• Do you have any evidence of challenges that the telecoms industry may face when encouraging consumers and businesses to adopt gigabit capable connections? Do you have any evidence to suggest how these might be overcome?
• If you are building gigabit capable infrastructure, what level of take-up are you currently seeing from your customers? Please select the applicable band: 0-10%; 11-20%; 21-30%; 31-40%; 41-50%; 51-60%; 61-70%; 71-80%; above 80%.

Questions for businesses

• What are the biggest challenges facing businesses when considering whether to upgrade their digital connectivity? What are the other key factors businesses consider when choosing their digital connectivity?
• How have businesses benefited from existing support (for example voucher schemes)?
• What other support could help businesses take up gigabit-capable connections, and who should play this role (government, local councils, others)?
• Do you have any examples of businesses successfully adopting gigabit-capable connections? What benefits did it bring to the business?
• Considering the growing importance of flexible working, what role do you think employers can play in supporting employees to take up gigabit-capable connections?

Questions for consumer groups

• What do you believe are the key issues consumers face when considering whether to upgrade their broadband connection? Might these issues be different for different groups of consumers? How do you think these may apply to gigabit connectivity? Please include any evidence you have to support these views.
• Do you have any evidence of the ways in which consumers can be successfully encouraged to adopt new technologies? How do you think this could be applied to gigabit take-up?
• What do you believe the key factors are that influence consumers’ broadband purchasing decisions
• What role do you think consumer groups can play in helping to support take-up of gigabit capable connections?