The comments come despite an announcement by Prime Minister David Cameron that he hopes to have superfast facilities to 95 per cent of the country by 2017. The NFU says this will still leave large parts of the countryside, and 1.5 million premises, struggling with outdated technology.
And that will ultimately have a detrimental impact on people’s lives and businesses.
NFU senior adviser for planning and rural affairs, Suzanne Clear, said: “The NFU believes the government should accelerate the roll out of high speed broadband to all rural areas; this is what is happening in the rest of Europe where the target is to get at least 30 Megabits per second (Mbps) by 2020 and many areas will exceed this.
“Current government plans are to provide superfast broadband measured at 24 mbps to 95% of the country by 2017, which will exclude a large area of the countryside and 1.5 million premises, leaving behind a digital divide. The assertion that ‘no-one will be left behind’ is incorrect.
“We note with interestthe proposal to consult in 2016 on an ambition to increase the Universal Service Commitment from 2 to 10 Mbps by the end of the Parliament in 2020. We are concerned that this is not enough to allow farmers and growers to compete internationally, and for rural communities to make the most of digital services. We need superfast broadband speeds by 2020 at the least if we are not to fall behind.
“A possible Universal Service Commitment of 10Mbps could improve matters if introduced straight away with superfast by 2020, but this is not what is proposed. Instead our members and rural communities could be waiting for five years to get their speeds increased from below 2Mbps to 10Mbps, which will impact on farm and wider rural productivity and the ability to access rural services.
“We welcome further clarification on the proposal that the public will have a legal right to request a connection to fast broadband no matter where they live. In theory this could help overcome the issue our members have when they are told they are in an area where broadband is available but that they are too remote or otherwise too difficult to connect, but we would be concerned that farmers should be adequately compensated for works that impact on their ability to farm.”