Today, the long awaited interim Digital Britain report from Communications Minister Lord Carter was finally published.
Top of the agenda was the expected announcement that every home in Britain ought to be able to sign up for broadband services guaranteeing speeds of at least 2Mbps through a variety of means - enhanced ADSL, fibre optic cable, and wireless connections.
“We will develop plans for a digital Universal Service Commitment to be effective by 2012, delivered by a mixture of fixed and mobile, wired and wireless means,” the report says. “Subject to further study of the costs and benefits, we will set out our plans for the level of service which we believe should be universal.”
The report estimates that some 1.75 million UK homes on BT’s network are without access to internet connections capable of achieving over this speed.
As was also expected, BT will be spared the brunt of cover the cost of connecting their 17.5 million, as the cost is likely to be shared between “a range of communications providers, and those who provide communication services over the network”.
2Mbps has been slated as the benchmark speed that ought to be available to everyone, due to the fact that that speed gives you access to the BBC’s iPlayer service - the government presumably wants everyone to potentially able to watch footage of the London Olympics on their computers.
The BBC are also expected to help out with advertising the availability of broadband and encouraging people to sign up for services.
“We are inviting the BBC to play a leading role, just as it has in digital broadcast, through marketing, cross-promotion and provision of content to drive interest in taking up broadband… the BBC can drive the development of platforms with open standards available to all content providers and device manufacturers alike.”
There was no projected figures for how much this 2Mbps broad-band-aid would cost, but there’s plenty of time between now and 2012 to get that sorted.
You have have a look see at the Digital Britain report yourself here.
Posted by Tom on January 29th 2009 in Broadband
Similar Posts:
