My Lords, the fact that this is a wide-ranging Bill is not surprising when you consider how the digital economy is transforming the world before us, and it has certainly been a wide-ranging debate. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today, particularly those who have come to see me in the past week to discuss the legislation. Before the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asks me, as he usually does, I will of course write to those whom I fail to answer this evening, and there will be many of them, because I think there have been hundreds of questions.
Starting with the universal service obligation, broadband and connectivity, I think that there is clearly a strong consensus in the House that we need faster broadband and better mobile phone signals, especially in the less well-served rural parts of the country. The Government agree, and we have been working to achieve it. Only 8% of premises in the country have access to broadband at speeds of less than 24 megabits per second, and that number is likely to halve by the end of the year. The broadband USO provided by the Bill will be a safety net, should anyone need it, by 2020. I was grateful for the support of my noble friends Lord Baker and Lord Holmes and the noble Lords, Lord Gordon, Lord Whitty and Lord Young, for the broadband USO.
Many Peers, including the noble Lord, Lord Fox, my noble friend Lord Holmes, the noble Lords, Lord Mitchell and Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, queried whether a 10 megabits per second USO is sufficiently ambitious. It will be Ofcom that recommends the speed and provides the technical advice on upload, download, latency, and so on. The Government believe that 10 megabits per second should be the minimum speed but have ambition for more—so we agree there—as we complete the superfast delivery programme.
The Bill provides powers to review and to increase the speed. In fact, 10 megabits per second is adequate for most households and allows high-definition video streaming as well as simultaneous video calling and web browsing, according to the Ofcom Connected Nations report and the digital communications review in 2016. We have ambitions for the future, but we think that it is adequate for the safety net—and, speaking personally, I can tell you that, if you had 1.5 or 2 megabits per second broadband and you were given 10 megabits, you would think that it was a tremendous difference.