More than 90 people – including local businesses, the County Council, BT and the Department for Culture Media and Sport – attended the North West Hampshire broadband summit, hosted by local MP Kit Malthouse last month.  Attendees mapped out a path towards universal fast internet connectivity in the region.

Kit Malthouse said: “Understanding the sheer scale and detail of this massive task gave people a clearer picture of what they can expect in the future. Fast broadband is vital for rural communities, especially as more and more of our lives move online, from banking and tax matters to e-health and education and it was good to see the commitment especially from Hampshire County Council. The summit laid down a marker with the organisations involved in the rollout that North West Hampshire is willing to be constructive in getting connected – that we had nearly 100 people attend on a wet Friday morning, shows how important this is to people.”

As a next step, Kit Malthouse MP, will:

• Work with Government to release allocated cash so that 100% of local residents and businesses can access broadband with a download speed of at least 2 mbps (megabits per second)
• Lobby the Government to allocate further money to connect the remaining 5% of UK homes and businesses to superfast broadband. (The Government is on course to connect 95% of homes and businesses in the UK to ‘superfast broadband’ (24mbps) in the UK by 2017.)