Communications Minister claims government will not give up on rural areas

The Communications Minister Ed Vaizey has attempted to reassure residents from the most rural areas of the UK that the government will continue to bring them fibre optic broadband after the 2015 completion target of its nationwide project.

Broadband Delivery UK aims to introduce a superfast connection to 90 per cent of Britain by the end of 2015. However, this figure combined with the coalition's decision to give every installation contract, so far, to BT has led to widespread concerns that rural spots will be excluded.

Critics such as the Public Accounts Committee and National Audit Office have claimed the lack of competition and BT's commercial motivations will lead to delays in the next-generation service being rolled out in areas that fall into the remaining ten per cent.

But Mr Vaizey told V3 there are further plans to increase coverage to 95 per cent by 2017 and 99 percent by 2018.

His defence of the project was backed up by the Ofcom Chief Executive Ed Richards, who said: "The government deserves a lot of credit for finding the money and delivering a plan for ensuring that superfast broadband has gone significantly beyond the commercial deployment in a timely way."