Have you spotted the ubiquitous BT Openreach vans in your area? They are the delivery army of the BDUK (Broadband Delivery UK) programme, part-funded by Wiltshire Council and underpinned with more than £500m of central government money that will see superfast broadband available to more than 90 per cent of Wiltshire premises by next spring and reach the remainder by the end of 2017.

With the work ahead of schedule many of our local cabinets, including mine in Rushall, are wired up and ready to go. Up to 70 megabits per second (Mbps) of connection speed are possible, and while speeds degrade away from the cabinets, anything above 5mbps will be a huge improvement over my current antediluvian speeds. This promised land of connectivity does not happen automatically, however, and we still need to contact BT to upgrade, or choose a new internet service provider – and with up to 120 of them potentially able to serve us, it is a dizzying prospect of choice.

To find out the status of your local programme or to click through to ISPs who want your business is now even easier via www.wiltshireonline.org and I will be placing my order later this week. Many other local residents will be in the same happy position but it is not all plain sailing. Even when local cabinets are upgraded, the quirks of the old copper telephone network can mean that parts of towns or villages are left out and, in the case of Worton, dozens of houses have missed out on the first upgrade. This is extremely frustrating and has real economic consequences as broadband speeds are now shown on property search engines and also influence decisions of local businesses when deciding on location. Happily, in a meeting I attended this week with local residents and BT, we reached an agreement to wire up the whole village by 2017.

These are vital services for those of us who live and work in the country and they are a key part of the Rural Productivity Plan announced this week by the Chancellor, which aims to remove barriers and put in place the best possible conditions for England’s rural areas to thrive. With a 10-point action list to improve rural broadband, mobile coverage and transport, get fairer funding for local schools, extend apprenticeships, improve planning to speed up neighbourhood plans, help local businesses to thrive and allow villages more freedoms to deliver starter homes on local exemption sites, it is an incredibly exciting plan to deliver vibrant, connected villages and towns right across rural Britain.