Slow farm broadband prompts BT break-up call

Telecoms giant BT is facing calls to be broken up – amid ongoing concern about slow rural broadband connections and poor customer service.

BT’s rivals have written to watchdog Ofcom calling for a full competition investigation into the company – claiming that the firm’s ownership of broadband provider Openreach has led to a poor customer service and made it hard for alternative providers to compete effectively.

Kate Parminter, Liberal Democrat deputy leader in the House of Lords and the party’s spokesman for environment and rural affairs, said she was “really worried” about the inadequate level of broadband in many parts of the countryside.

The government needs to move faster on the issue of rural broadband, Baroness Parminter told a Liberal Democrat conference fringe meeting hosted by the NFU and the Food and Drink Federation in Bournemouth on Tuesday (22 September).

“As someone who spent most of the winter trying to get his basic payment application online, by God does this government need to sort its IT out”
Guy Smith, NFU  

Baroness Parminter said: “We will certainly be picking up that issue when we get back into parliament [after party conference season] because broadband is an issue which has been dragging on for far too long.

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“The government needs to be doing more – and more quickly.”

BT has responded to claims that its service is too slow by announcing plans to connect 10m homes to ultrafast broadband by the end of 2020 while raising the minimum broadband speed for homes that cannot get fibre to 5-10Mbps.

NFU vice-president Guy Smith said he fully supported the call for better rural broadband.

“As someone who spent most of the winter trying to get his basic payment application online, by God does this government need to sort its IT out,” he said. “Its record is appalling.”