RURAL communities are being penalised by a lack of internet access and the so-called digital gap between remote and urban areas is widening, according to a new study.
Poor internet speeds are damaging business, adding to the costs faced by farmers, and driving young people away from the areas in which they have grown up, the research showed. The issue is also putting off retired people from moving to more remote communities.
Researchers from Aberdeen and Oxford universities said that one million people in Britain struggled to access the internet properly because they live in areas which are not linked up with high-speed broadband. The problem is most pronounced in upland areas of Scotland as well as remote parts of Wales and England.
Professor John Farrington, of the University of Aberdeen and lead author of the report, said the drive to make public services such as voter registrations and tax returns "digital by default" would not work unless rural communities had better access.
He added: “Rural businesses are penalised because they are unable to take advantage of the commercial efficiencies afforded by the internet, as in the creative industries, or have to resort to the use of paper systems which are more costly, as in the farming sector where there is a push to move administration such as sheep registrations online.
“All these issues can potentially create a new tipping point for digitally poorly connected rural areas, including: losing businesses; adding to farming’s costs; making out-migration more likely for young people; and in-migration less likely for retirees or the economically active.”
The academics found that in urban areas just 95 per cent of people have an average broadband speed above 6.3 Mbits/sec.
But in the most remote communities, only 47 per cent of people have that access - which means it takes one minute to download a music album or 18 minutes for a film.
Mr Farrington said: "This report clearly demonstrates there is a growing social and economic gap between those who are connected and those who are not, the ‘digitally excluded’.
"It is generally seen in differences between remote rural internet use on the one hand, and less remote, rural and urban internet use on the other.
“This broadband speed gap between urban and especially deep rural areas is widening: it will begin to narrow as superfast reaches more rural areas but better-connected, mostly urban, areas will also increase speeds at a high rate.
"This means faster areas will probably continue to get faster, faster with slow speed areas left lagging behind."
Almost one-fifth of the population live in rural areas however in a survey of more than 1,000 people, none in the most remote areas said they had access to superfast broadband.
The highest broadband speed in remote rural areas - 17.4 Mbits/sec - was still lower than the average speed for urban areas.
The researchers said that although the digital gap would narrow temporarily as superfast broadband is rolled out to more rural areas, better connected areas were then expected to see their speeds increase at a high rate.
They added that the poor connection levels meant that farmers, already struggling with poor harvests because of the bad weather this year, face the prospect of financial penalties when completing animal passports and registrations while creative businesses have difficulty in meeting clients' needs.
The academics also pointed to the social importance of good internet access. Younger people often feel left out of their peer groups if they have poor connections and older people use the internet to feel "connected to the outside world", they said.
Principal investigator of the Oxford Internet Surveys Professor William Dutton, from the University of Oxford, added: “This is the first time we have captured data to clearly show the depth of the divide between those living in remote rural parts of Britain and the rest of the country.
"The digital gap is not just due to age, income or education. We show that slower broadband speeds are barring many rural communities from engaging in the social or commercial online opportunities enjoyed by those in towns and cities.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The Scottish Government believes nobody should be left without access to superfast broadband. Every week fibre broadband becomes available to another 7000 homes and businesses thanks to Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB). Alongside commercial coverage, this £400million investment will deliver fibre broadband to 95% of premises in Scotland by 2017.
“We also established Community Broadband Scotland, a £16.5 million initiative to deliver solutions to those least likely to benefit from the DSSB programme. To date around 390,000 homes and businesses across Scotland now have access to fibre broadband as a result of DSSB. We are committed to getting the remaining homes and business online and Community Broadband Scotland is currently working with nearly 90 communities across Scotland to develop broadband solutions.”
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