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Govt announces broadband delay
Friday 16th July 2010, by Daniel King
Broadband customers in the UK could be encouraged to shop around for the best deals for a few more years after the government announced it is pushing back the timeframe for a national roll-out of super-fast connections.
Under the labour administration, it was targeted that every home in Britain would have access to broadband speeds of at least 2Mbps by 2012.
However, the new coalition government has now announced that the target is unobtainable in the current financial climate.
Instead the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has pushed the date back by three years, saying it may not be achieved until 2015.
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt told visitors to a recent broadband industry event: "I've looked at the provision that the previous government made to achieve [2Mbps universal broadband access] by 2012 and … I'm not convinced they've put sufficient funding in place.
"So while we will keep working towards that date we have set ourselves a more realistic target of achieving universal 2Mbps access within the lifetime of this parliament."
Broadband customers could be forgiven for getting mixed signals from the government after its digital champion Martha Lane Fox recently launched an initiative to get as many people as possible online by 2012.
While its ultimate goal is to get the ten million people in the UK who have never accessed the internet online by 2015, Ms Fox called on those already hooked up to broadband services to encourage as many people as they can to access the web by 2012.
It also follows an announcement last month from Mr Hunt that the new government would support the policy that was put in place by the Labour administration.
Categories: Broadband
