Conservative plans for “super-fast broadband” for UK

bluefibres Broadband Britain has become almost as big a political battleground as Broken Britain as the race for the upcoming election gathers steam. The Conservatives have unveiled plans to deliver “super-fast broadband” to the majority of UK homes by 2017, part of which could be funded by the BBC licence fee.

In yesterday’s Guardian, Shadow chancellor George Osborne said that an incoming Tory government would deliver speeds of up to 100Mbps and that the UK could be the first European country to have super-fast broadband speeds.

Private investment would be allowed to pay for better cabling for the broadband expansion and as a backup, the BBC – whose iPlayer has driven demand for faster broadband – has put aside 3.5% of the licence fee to fund the project.

Mr. Osbourne went on to say: “In the 19th Century we built the railways. In the 20th Century we built the motorways. In the 21st Century let’s build the super-fast broadband network that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Britain.”

Labour was quick to point out that its current plans will see 90% of UK homes getting at least (not up to) 2Mbps by 2012. As 2Mbps is the minimum required speed to stream TV from the iPlayer, this would see the majority of UK residents able to watch the London Olympics online if they chose to.

The Guardian quotes Mr. Osbourne saying that Conservatives would end BT’s “local loop monopoly” citing ‘an approach that has proved successful in countries such as Singapore and South Korea.’

Ironically, KT (formerly Korea Telecom) only became a fully privatized entity fairly recently, in 2002. Before then installation of phone lines and cables had been managed by the government of South Korea.

“I think the best way to deliver this is by breaking up the British Telecom monopoly at the moment, which holds back companies such as Carphone Warehouse or Virgin,” he said.

Referring to the recent launch of BT Infinity, a spokesperson for BT said: “Technology is moving on and BT is at the forefront of that revolution. We are investing £1.5bn to get fibre to at least 10 million homes by mid 2012 and we want to go further.”

Carphone Warehouse has recently fully absorbed Tiscali, and Virgin Media has just announced that it plans to offer free calls to Virgin Mobile from Virgin home phone lines. Are the Tories proposals more Hug a Hotspot or is it just more of Hug a Hoodie? Let us know in the comments below.

[Image from VentureBeat]

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