The Government has previously announced Project Gigabit, where millions of people in rural England will get access to the fastest broadband speeds on the market as part of a £5billion plan to level up internet access across the UK.

The government’s Project Gigabit fund to upgrade digital infrastructure in hard-to-reach areas will accelerate the country’s recovery from covid, fire up high-growth sectors such as tech and the creative industries, put an end to families battling for bandwidth and bring the speed and reliability people need to start and run businesses.

New details published on the 2nd of August reveal up to 1,850,000 additional premises across 26 English counties will get access to gigabit speed internet of 1,000 megabits per second - enough to download a HD movie in less than 30 seconds and lay the foundations for next-generation tech such as 8K-quality video streaming.

It brings the current total number of premises in scope for government-funded coverage to 2.2 million, with more still to be announced over the coming months across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Further information:

GOV.UK - Two million rural homes and businesses to benefit in £5 billion broadband upgrade

The Rural Services Network has been campaigning for improved broadband services in rural areas as part of the Revitalising Rural Campaign.

274,000 households and businesses in England cannot access a decent fixed broadband connection of 10 Mbps.  This is the threshold set for the broadband USO, which the regulator (OFCOM) considers neccesary for everyday use, though it is likely to prove inadequate for many business or home working users.

The RSN has set out a range of information and key facts and national policy details in relation to Rural Digital Connectivity in it's campaign along with a number of Asks of Government and the chapter can be viewed at this link.