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Digital Britain plan 'not ambitious enough'
Friday 30th January 2009, by Daniel King
A leading Scottish MP has claimed that the UK government has not been ambitious enough with its plans for a Digital Britain.
Mike Weir, business and enterprise spokesperson for the Scottish National Party, insisted that Scotland and the UK is currently "lagging behind" in the provision of fibre-optic broadband networks.
He said the government's commitment to laying out a universal service obligation for broadband was a positive move that would come as a boost to those in rural locations where access is still unavailable.
"Broadband is the communications highway for the 21st century and this announcement is a step in the right direction," Mr Weir commented.
However, as well as providing greater broadband availability, he claimed the government should have been more ambitious with plans for next-generation broadband networks.
"Every community should have access to this technology so that businesses in rural Scotland can compete with enterprises elsewhere in the UK and indeed throughout Europe," Mr Weir said.
He added that "significant investment" would be required in order to achieve this, with much more needing to be done to ensure access to faster speeds for households and businesses across the UK.
The Digital Britain report was published by UK communications minister Lord Carter on Thursday this week after its release had initially been delayed.
It outlined plans to provide broadband speeds of up to 2Mbps to every home in the country by 2012 and revealed that a new government-led strategy group would be set up to assess demand and supply for next-generation networks.
Categories: Broadband
