Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:47 pm on 22 November 2017.
I accept that that is a very frustrating thing to have happen and there's some frustrations around the way that BT has restructured its copper network, and we had a spirited conversation about what the new wiring on the pole was, as I recollect, when I visited you. I've become an expert in what wires on poles are and how they're connected recently, which is a new skill that I hear that you didn't have. We accept those frustrations, but, as I say, the contract doesn't allow us to tell BT where to go, it only tells us how many premises they'll connect, and the reason for that was that was the cheapest way to connect the highest number of premises, though I completely accept the frustrations in communication that that has given rise to. That won't be the way we do the second phase because we will want to target communities that have particular issues. We discussed that in your constituency and I'm very happy to discuss it in others.
I will say this, though, in terms of the saw mill, for example: one of the frustrations we have is that sometimes businesses wait for superfast to get to them and then discover that, actually, 100 Mbps isn't enough, and that if they are communicating with head offices elsewhere in the world that they should upgrade to an ultrafast connection as fast as possible. We have a business exploitation team: very helpful individuals who can come and talk to the business about whether that might be the best way forward, and I would certainly recommend that, and I can sort that out if Simon Thomas wants to send me the detail. I'd be very grateful to have the other detail as well on that point, however.
Turning to mobile, you will know that we had the mobile roundtable and followed by the mobile action plan, my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for planning—amongst other things—is about to publish the research into planning. Russell George highlighted the number of masts necessary to get the signal across Wales. There is a balance to be drawn between covering our national parks with masts and getting all of these signals done and we are talking as well to the Home Office about using their emergency network to allow others to hang equipment onto that network, because I personally think it's a terrible shame to cover the beautiful landscape of Wales with lots and lots of masts in order to have different companies have different infrastructures when, actually, they could share, and we would all get a much better service. However, that's an ongoing discussion and, as I say, it's not actually devolved to Wales.
What I would like to finish by saying, though, Llywydd, is this: we remain absolutely committed to getting broadband connection to every property in Wales. Without this last superfast intervention, many properties in rural Wales would never have had any hope whatsoever of receiving broadband. I share the frustration of those left behind but we are determined to cover them off in the second programme, and in an as innovative and imaginative a way as we possibly can. Diolch.