Government trumpets 'one million homes and businesses' with access to superfast broadband

UK is reportedly on track to deliver 27Mbps connections to 95% of population

More than one million homes and businesses now have access to ‘superfast’ broadband in the UK, according to the government.

It said that the UK was on track to deliver speeds of 24Mbps or above (the European Union’s classification of ‘superfast’ ) to 95 per cent of the UK by 2017, with the remaining 5 per cent brought up to a minimum of 2Mbps.

“It is totally transforming the way we live and work,” said Culture Secretary Sajid Javid.

“You can download feature length films faster, chatting online with family and friends around the world using VOIP is more reliable and households can go online simultaneously without the connection slowing down or dropping out.”

However, experts have criticized the government for failing to match the ambition of other countries. Finland is currently planning to reach baselines speeds of 100Mbps by 2015 while South Korea is aiming for 1Gbps connections by 2017.

John Allan, national chairman of the UK Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has said that there was “still a long way to go” to meet broadband targets, telling the BBC that many small businesses were still “without decent and affordable broadband”.

The government also outlined it ongoing plans to connect rural homes, with this roll-out to hard to reach areas supervised by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).

BDUK is responsible for allocating £530m of government money to improve infrastructure but has criticized for awarding every contract to BT.