The government has announced new plans to beam broadband via satellites to improve internet connection across remote locations in the UK.

A trial launched this week will investigate if satellites can be used to facilitate high-speed connections to around a dozen ‘very hard to reach’ locations.

These regions make up the less than one per cent of sites which are “too difficult to upgrade via expensive physical cables”, including more extreme locations like mountainous areas or small islands.

The move comes as the government signs its largest contract under its £5 billion programme to roll out gigabit-capable connects to hard-to-reach areas.

The £108 million contract will see 60,000 rural homes and businesses connected in Cumbria.

“High-speed broadband beamed to earth from space could be the answer to the connectivity issues suffered by people in premises stuck in the digital slow lane,” said digital secretary Michelle Donelan. “Ensuring everyone can get a quality internet connection is crucial to our levelling up plans and these trials aim to find a solution to the prohibitively high cost of rolling out cables to far-flung locations.”

In October, Virgin Media O2 announced it was trialling 4G and 5G connected drones to help support emergency services in UK national parks.

According to figures from Mountain Rescue England and Wales, visitor numbers to UK national parks have increased by around 40 per cent compared to 2019 and 15 per cent from 2020.

Emergency services in rural areas like Snowdonia are reliant on receiving 999 calls, but mobile connections are often interrupted by the extreme geographical landscape, which impacts emergency calls and the reliability of geographical location data.

Earlier this year, the government also announced that it was upgrading broadband for rural primary schools.

Over the next three years, up to 3,000 schools across rural England will get fast gigabit broadband under the new scheme.

As of August, 70 per cent of UK homes and businesses have access to gigabit broadband, up from just seven per cent three years ago.

Since 2019, an additional 20 million premises have been connected to the fast broadband network.

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