Broadband News
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"Universal" broadband - the devil is in the detail.
29 Jan 2009 | 22.21 Europe/London
Reading and re-reading the interim Digital Britain report it becomes clear that less is promised than some headlines would suggest. Broadband 'in every home by 2012' isn't actually in the report. In fact, 2012 might be the date by which a USO scheme is in place. One wouldn't expect it to deliver overnight.
As an interim report Digital Britain hedges its bets with "initial assessment" and similar phrases, for example suggesting that 2 Mbits/s would seem a reasonable tradeoff but lower speeds may be adopted on further analysis and consultation with the EU and OFCOM. At least some of the improvements are expected to arrive with BT's move to ADSL2 which will either go a bit further or go a bit faster at the same range - a few hundred metres or a few hundred kbits/s more.
Another interesting and rather Clintonesque point is the definition of "Universal". The report notes that "universality in terrestrial broadcast networks is considered to have been achieved at 98.5%", for example – is this a hint at what would be acceptable for broadband ?
The proposed USO may not mean 2M broadband for a tenner a month either, as the report states that "we expect that, as with today’s USO, the end consumer should, beyond a certain point, make a contribution to the cost of providing connectivity." One could argue that we already have this, as practically anyone can get 2 Mbits/s from a satellite now if they're prepared to pay.
BT are clearly not going to pick up the tab for the USO as it is "expected that the costs of a future universal service commitment could be shared more widely as it is in other countries, between a range of communications providers and those who provide communication services over the network. "
"Once the desired level of service has been established we will need to determine the mechanisms by which it can be delivered" so we can expect prolonged debates about the where and how of delivery. Australia had a scheme where anyone getting a customer connected up received a flat-rate payment as a kind of "bounty" - leading to widespread delivery of wireless broadband to remote customers. The Digital Britain report talks of a service "delivered by a mixture of fixed and mobile, wired and wireless means" and includes reference to satellite.
If you're sat in a Notspot without broadband, or limping along at 160 kbits/s download then I'm afraid that, three years hence, you may still be in the same position – even if by then there is a mechanism in place to look at how to improve things, and just what part of the cost would be billed to you.
As an interim report Digital Britain hedges its bets with "initial assessment" and similar phrases, for example suggesting that 2 Mbits/s would seem a reasonable tradeoff but lower speeds may be adopted on further analysis and consultation with the EU and OFCOM. At least some of the improvements are expected to arrive with BT's move to ADSL2 which will either go a bit further or go a bit faster at the same range - a few hundred metres or a few hundred kbits/s more.
Another interesting and rather Clintonesque point is the definition of "Universal". The report notes that "universality in terrestrial broadcast networks is considered to have been achieved at 98.5%", for example – is this a hint at what would be acceptable for broadband ?
The proposed USO may not mean 2M broadband for a tenner a month either, as the report states that "we expect that, as with today’s USO, the end consumer should, beyond a certain point, make a contribution to the cost of providing connectivity." One could argue that we already have this, as practically anyone can get 2 Mbits/s from a satellite now if they're prepared to pay.
BT are clearly not going to pick up the tab for the USO as it is "expected that the costs of a future universal service commitment could be shared more widely as it is in other countries, between a range of communications providers and those who provide communication services over the network. "
"Once the desired level of service has been established we will need to determine the mechanisms by which it can be delivered" so we can expect prolonged debates about the where and how of delivery. Australia had a scheme where anyone getting a customer connected up received a flat-rate payment as a kind of "bounty" - leading to widespread delivery of wireless broadband to remote customers. The Digital Britain report talks of a service "delivered by a mixture of fixed and mobile, wired and wireless means" and includes reference to satellite.
If you're sat in a Notspot without broadband, or limping along at 160 kbits/s download then I'm afraid that, three years hence, you may still be in the same position – even if by then there is a mechanism in place to look at how to improve things, and just what part of the cost would be billed to you.