Broadband News
News, views and analysis
Superfast broadband for all, government pledges as Internet minister wipes the (Twitter) slate clean
20 May 2010 | 11.23 Europe/London
The coalition Conservative and Liberal Democrat government has committed itself to supporting ‘superfast’ broadband in rural areas as well as towns and cities.
Although the government has committed to ‘introduce measures’ to ensure there is an even spread of ‘superfast’ broadband, there is no indication how this will be achieved and, most importantly, paid for.
The only indications of what these special measures could be is the condition, much publicized before the election, that BT (and other networks providers) must open up their ducts to cut down on the cost of other networks rolling out fibre.
In full, the single paragraph on broadband within the policy document reads:
“We will introduce measures to ensure the rapid roll-out of superfast broadband across the country. We will ensure that BT and other infrastructure providers allow the use of their assets to deliver such broadband, and we will seek to introduce superfast broadband in remote areas at the same time as in more populated areas. If necessary, we will consider using the part of the TV licence fee that is supporting the digital switchover to fund broadband in areas that the market alone will not reach.”
How will it be done?
The lack of any detail has led the President of the Country Land and Business Asoociation (CLA) to welcome the intention, whilst wondering where the detail will come from.
“The Coalition’s Programme for Government is full of good intentions to protect and enhance the rural economy, including promoting superfast rural broadband,” he said.
“However, these good intentions come at a price. The Programme is worryingly silent on how these promises will be paid for.”
How will it be financed
With no mention of resurrecting the 50p broadband tax, which was taken out of the Digital Economy Bill, passed in the last week of the Labour government, it would appear the proposed levy is finally gone – the Conservatives argued vehemently against it and so it would have been a surprise to see it resuscitated.
The reference to the money left over from the digital switch over fund, post 2012, is nothing new either. This has long been proposed as a means to fund ‘final third’ projects and it is not yet known how much will be left in the fund and how many rural households this would give fibre to.
Wot no Tweets?
The minister who is expected to be put in charge of this, Jeremy Hunt, is not in a position to clarify any points of policy at the moment. Regular followers on Twitter were surprised to find today that he had deleted previous Tweets. One possible explanation was that several message left on the site before and during the election were critical of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrat party and now Deputy Prime Minister.
Although the government has committed to ‘introduce measures’ to ensure there is an even spread of ‘superfast’ broadband, there is no indication how this will be achieved and, most importantly, paid for.
The only indications of what these special measures could be is the condition, much publicized before the election, that BT (and other networks providers) must open up their ducts to cut down on the cost of other networks rolling out fibre.
In full, the single paragraph on broadband within the policy document reads:
“We will introduce measures to ensure the rapid roll-out of superfast broadband across the country. We will ensure that BT and other infrastructure providers allow the use of their assets to deliver such broadband, and we will seek to introduce superfast broadband in remote areas at the same time as in more populated areas. If necessary, we will consider using the part of the TV licence fee that is supporting the digital switchover to fund broadband in areas that the market alone will not reach.”
How will it be done?
The lack of any detail has led the President of the Country Land and Business Asoociation (CLA) to welcome the intention, whilst wondering where the detail will come from.
“The Coalition’s Programme for Government is full of good intentions to protect and enhance the rural economy, including promoting superfast rural broadband,” he said.
“However, these good intentions come at a price. The Programme is worryingly silent on how these promises will be paid for.”
How will it be financed
With no mention of resurrecting the 50p broadband tax, which was taken out of the Digital Economy Bill, passed in the last week of the Labour government, it would appear the proposed levy is finally gone – the Conservatives argued vehemently against it and so it would have been a surprise to see it resuscitated.
The reference to the money left over from the digital switch over fund, post 2012, is nothing new either. This has long been proposed as a means to fund ‘final third’ projects and it is not yet known how much will be left in the fund and how many rural households this would give fibre to.
Wot no Tweets?
The minister who is expected to be put in charge of this, Jeremy Hunt, is not in a position to clarify any points of policy at the moment. Regular followers on Twitter were surprised to find today that he had deleted previous Tweets. One possible explanation was that several message left on the site before and during the election were critical of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrat party and now Deputy Prime Minister.
The best way government can help get a real digital britain is to level the playing field for private investors/councils/communities to lay their own fibre infrastructure in areas the telcos aren't interested in. They can do this by making sure openretch don't open their ducts via their clever solicitors and charge so much, with so much red tape that access is rendered useless.
Government can do it by removing the VOA tax that openretch don't have to pay on new fibre runs but communities do. They can make the utility companies share digs and ducts, and encourage highways and councils to smooth the path for planning applications for any infrastructure deployments in the final third. If the rural areas are given the tools they can do a lot of it themselves, at no cost to the taxpayer. It is very misguided to think that the telcos will ever help less populated areas. Many areas haven't got adsl or mobile and they ain't gonna get fibre either if left to the telcos to deliver.
One main point of the finalthirdfirst campaign is that if the rural areas are given fibre connections then the telcos will stop messing about trying to protect the copper cabal and invest in their own infrastructure a bit more. Then we will have a digitalbritain to be proud of.
chris
20 May 2010 | 12.01 Europe/London
just looked at the proposed figures given before the election. £200m was expected to be leftover in the BBC digital switchover, and the broadband tax was expected to raise £2bn over 7 years... ie the equivalent of what is expected to be left in the switchover fund every year... rather than a one off.
Strikes me there's a big gap there!!
21 May 2010 | 08.18 Europe/London
cyberdoyle - if you used the correct names for companies people might take your comments seriously. Your last paragraph makes no sense.
23 May 2010 | 10.50 Europe/London
agreed, using words like "Openretch" makes the post look infantile.
The fibre coven have no viable business model or positive suggestions, only carping.
24 May 2010 | 11.55 Europe/London
cd now realises what many knew all along - that a collection of local people would never be allowed to install their own cables in a telcos ducts without training etc.
26 May 2010 | 16.37 Europe/London