Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:38 pm on 13 June 2017.
Well, that was quite a comprehensive list of things. We sent a consultation document out, which I hope all Members have received, and that has a web link in it to an interactive map. If you go on to that map, which I hope at least some Members will have had the opportunity to do already, you’ll be able to see that you can go down to individual premises level. And there’s an icon on the top of each individual premises that says what we think is happening in that particular building. So, you should be able to see whether it’s a square, a triangle or a red dot, or whatever, and there’s a key along the side of it that tells you what those symbols mean: more than one provider, only one provider, only wireless, and so on. We’re very, very keen to ensure that that information is as accurate as possible, so we really would like to get as wide a consultation as possible on that. So, for those of you who have constituents who’ve written to me, or you’ve written to me about groups of people or communities, I’d be really grateful if you’d check the maps to make sure that the information matches what you understand to be the case.
In terms of some of the other questions, on the number of premises, the contractual commitment for BT is about the number of premises; it was never a percentage. The percentage that was talked about in 2011 was the percentage of premises available in Wales in 2011. I mean, quite clearly, a lot more premises have been built since 2011 to now, so you would never have expected the number to stay the same. Indeed, that’s one of the issues that several Members in the Chamber have highlighted, because there was a big issue in the open market review about new-build premises afterwards. They weren’t included, and that’s been a constant problem, and I’m expecting to have to address that.
The other thing is that the way that the mapping has been done is a lot more accurate. I’ve already checked my own constituency area this morning, just out of interest, and you can immediately see that some of the premises identified are statues, for example, and I’m pretty sure they won’t want to be broadband enabled. Others are: there’s a reservoir identified in my constituency, which I don’t think needs broadband, although I could check with Welsh Water as to whether they have some kind of service that they might need at the reservoir and so on. So, the mapping is a great deal more accurate than it was in 2011, but it’s not as accurate as we’d like it to be and we’d very much like information back from you about the accuracy or otherwise of that. There’s absolutely no point in us trying to get all the way up a track to a barn if, actually, nobody lives in it, for example.
That takes me onto the next thing, which is that we have put a great deal more money into demand stimulation. The current take-up is around 35 per cent. BT, as you know, estimated it to be 21 per cent, and we get a gain share for everything over that. It’s running at somewhere between 31 and 38 per cent, but the average is about 35 per cent at the moment, and as you’d expect, that’s going up all the time. It’s more for fibre to the cabinet than fibre to the premises at the moment, but that’s because the fibre-to-the-premises build has only very recently really ramped up. So, we’re very happy that the take-up exceeds the limit that BT set, because we’re getting a good gain share from that, but obviously the higher it climbs, the more money we get and so I’d be more than anxious to talk to you all about ways that you think you can stimulate demand in your local areas. We’re trying to do it nationally. I’m writing out to every single premises we think has got superfast asking them to take it up and so on.
I’m very interested in looking at communities of interest, as well. We have a completely open book here and I really would be very grateful to AMs who would come back to me about this. Should we try to target all the remaining farmers? Should we try to target all the remaining businesses? Should we try to target only those people who indicate to us they’d actually buy it? Some of these premises will be very expensive to get to. It would be sad to spend the money to get to them, only to find that the homeowner has no intention whatsoever of taking up the offer. It’s a genuinely open consultation, I really don’t know how we should prioritise it. We’re unlikely to actually get fibre cable to every premises in Wales. Clearly, that would be prohibitively expensive for some, so some will have to have alternative technology there. The voucher scheme will continue to be available to those people who are very unlikely to ever get fibre broadband. I’m afraid, if you live 14 miles up a track and you’re the only premises up there, it’s most unlikely to be economically efficient for us to do that—we’ll probably assist with a satellite or some such.
So, I am genuinely asking you what the best way of doing this actually is. If we have whole communities who’d like to have wireless, for example—so they’d like to have the broadband provided to a community centre, and then the whole village or community could be covered by a wireless signal instead of wired to each premise—we’re very happy to consider that. It’s one of the reasons we’ve adjusted the voucher scheme, so that communities can apply together to do that. As you know, it’s individual at the moment. There are other adjustments—Russell, you mentioned the ultrafast thing; we know that some businesses don’t want to go all the way to 100, but they need more than 30 and so on. Hefin David, actually—he’s not in the Chamber—has raised that with me several times, so have you, and so has David Rees. Clearly, a lot of businesses want that medium product that we’re looking at. So, there’s a wealth of things that we can do.
In terms of capacity issues in the network, we don’t pay BT when the cabinet is passed, we pay them when individual premises are passed. They get paid for the number of premises. So, if you think that we’ve accepted a premises, and, actually, they’re not getting it, do let me know because we can adjust that backwards. But I assure you, it’s on individual premises. I’m not saying, ‘Cabinet 16 is enabled, and therefore all the premises connected to it are getting superfast’, because they most certainly are not.