UK to have Europe's "best broadband network"
Every community in the UK will gain access to super-fast broadband by 2015 under plans outlined today.
The private sector is to deliver broadband to two thirds of the UK. Other, mainly rural, areas will receive public funds to build a "digital hub" with a fibre optic internet connection.
Ministers say they aim for the UK to have Europe's best broadband network.
This will create "hundreds of thousands of jobs and add billions to our GDP", says Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The government has earmarked £830m for the scheme, with some of this money coming from funds given to the BBC to fund the switch to digital TV.
Mr Hunt says the strategy will give the country Europe's best broadband network by 2015 and will be central to economic growth and the delivery of future public services, dependent on quick, reliable access to the internet.
He added that wider access to broadband services also helped "build a fairer and more prosperous society", as well as "saving billions of pounds of taxpayers' money".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11922424
A very good move by the government, IMO. We lag behind most developed nations and it's time something was done to provide better broadband services across the country.
A positive move to create more jobs and higher growth for the economy.
The private sector is to deliver broadband to two thirds of the UK. Other, mainly rural, areas will receive public funds to build a "digital hub" with a fibre optic internet connection.
Ministers say they aim for the UK to have Europe's best broadband network.
This will create "hundreds of thousands of jobs and add billions to our GDP", says Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The government has earmarked £830m for the scheme, with some of this money coming from funds given to the BBC to fund the switch to digital TV.
Mr Hunt says the strategy will give the country Europe's best broadband network by 2015 and will be central to economic growth and the delivery of future public services, dependent on quick, reliable access to the internet.
He added that wider access to broadband services also helped "build a fairer and more prosperous society", as well as "saving billions of pounds of taxpayers' money".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11922424
A very good move by the government, IMO. We lag behind most developed nations and it's time something was done to provide better broadband services across the country.
A positive move to create more jobs and higher growth for the economy.
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Comments
This was actually earmarked by the last government aswell.
It was the reason we decided to get into fibre optic cable and solutions 4 years ago.
1cm plus the other 39cm....
Wasn't the Labour plan for a much lower bandwith though by 2012?
The coalition government seems to be aiming higher.
No it isn't, the Labour plan was for a much lower bandwith.
Labour's plan was to have a minimum 2mb in all areas (which basically meant paying companies to put the infrastructure in rural areas they previously won't bother with, and according to the OPs linked report this pledge is repeated by the Tories) and to move towards everywhere having superfast broadband (50mb+) by an unspecified date.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8579333.stm
This new plan differs in specifying a target date for this and the indirect route of the taxpayer funding as far as I can tell. No doubt there are more differences hidden away in the detail but the headline pledge isn't very different.
I'm on Virgin Media's 20Mbps package, and considering going up to 50Mbps... given that the UK Government up to now has been bleating on about everyone having a minimum of 2Mbps, would that make me on ULTRAfast broadband?
I thought the date quoted was 2015 in the report
Brown was going to put 50p on the line rental wasn't he?
I agree that a plan for all to have high speed is desirable. I can't get it because we will never have cable and I live at a great distance from the supplying telephone exchange. But I get it for free so I can't really grumble.
BT can't even manage a reliable 1MB connection to my house (2.8 miles from exchange).
Out here "ultra-fast" is anything that isn't dial-up.
2Mbps (up to 250 kiloBYTES a second) is NOT Ultrafast broadband, it is now becoming equivilent to what 56kbps (dial up modem) was a few years ago. As years move forward this will be ever more true as web applications become ever more demanding. To be truely progressive the Government needs to set a higher speed target, say 50 Megabits to be deployed. With BT trialing 1Gbps even 50 Megabits will become snail speed in the relative future. Saying that 1Gbps whilst sounding impressive only delivers a maximum performance of 125MB per second, comparable to current HDD transfer speeds.
Either way I am happy, as I have Virgin, SKY and BT as my customers. The move to high speed broadband and fibre optic cable is going to make our little company quite a lot of money.
How to I get the BBC to pay up?
Do I approach a few license payers or my local dodgy MP?
And why aren't the BBC gritting more roads?
Yep is a sly way to close down the BBC whilst still nicking our license money.
Don't compare speeds today with what you might get under fibre-to-the-*. Even if it is fibre to the cabinet, the distance will be much smaller than it currently is. If it is fibre-to-the-home, then the distance between you and the exchange becomes much more irrelevant (in terms of potential speed).
I understand the technology.
Just don't believe it will happen.
Had a BT engineer come to the house when we first got the internet. We were having horrid connection speeds and dropped connections all the time.
He told us that 70% of internet problems are caused in the little stretch of wire that goes from the house to the telegraph pole. That in an ideal world BT recommended that wire was replaced every 7-10 years. This house is 50 years old and still on the original wire that was put in about 10 years after it was built. So we asked if he was going to replace it.
Oh no, he said, he'd need special permission from BT to do that and we wouldn't get it. Periodically replacing that wire in accordance with BT's own recommendations would have BT bankrupt within 2 years.
So they fob people off with under performing connections and hope no one notices.
Please get your bits and bytes sorted out.
Some help towards the goal, would be to add mandatory provision of multicore fibre duct in building regulation, all new roads and estates ducted for fibre at construction. Sub ducts then leased out to carriers.
We do the same for water, sewage, gas and electric.