About broadband in Wales
We want everyone to be able to access fast reliable broadband.
Who is responsible for broadband in Wales?
- Broadband in Wales, as in the rest of the UK, is fully privatised. Ofcom is the regulator for the communications services that we use and rely on each day, including broadband.
- The UK Government has primary responsibility for broadband policy and have plans to invest £5 billion in providing full fibre connectivity across the UK.
- This is not devolved to Wales but we do have some other powers to take action. We have used this to more than double the availability of fast broadband across Wales through our Superfast Cymru programme.
Superfast Cymru transformed the digital landscape of Wales with the vast majority of properties across the country now able to access a fast fibre broadband service. We delivered this in partnership with BT with a public sector investment of more than £200m. This included funding from the European Regional Development Fund.
Superfast Cymru provided almost 733,000 properties across Wales with access to fast fibre broadband. We intervened where the private sector had no plans to do so. This means that none of these properties would have received access to fast fibre broadband without Superfast Cymru.
There remain properties without access to fast broadband which the private sector has no plans to address. As part of our efforts to help reach these properties we are working with Openreach to rollout full fibre broadband to even more properties across Wales. Openreach is delivering this work using a mixture of public and private funding. This includes funding from the EU.
There is no one size fits all solution for the remaining properties and the new rollout is just one part of a range of measures.
We have already delivered high speed wireless broadband to numerous business parks and industrial estates and have a number of grant schemes and projects that support individuals, businesses and communities to find innovative solutions to connectivity.