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Rural broadband requires 'significant public investment'
Friday 13th March 2009, by Daniel King
The government's suggestion that the BBC could be involved in funding the expansion of superfast broadband services across the UK has been welcomed by business representatives.
Communications minister Lord Carter said earlier this week that the corporation could "possibly" have a role to play in helping to finance the development of next-generation networks.
The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) claimed that this was a positive step in the government's objective to introduce broadband for all by 2012.
CLA president Henry Aubrey-Fletcher said universal access could only become a reality "if the public sector invests heavily" to help develop infrastructure and improve services in remote locations.
He commented: "We won't have universal broadband in rural areas without significant public investment.
"We have already said that a proportion of the BBC licence fee should be used to contribute to the cost of this."
However, Mr Aubrey-Fletcher insisted that even this "won't be sufficient" to help provide access for all, with greater investment required to help make broadband available across all rural areas.
Seeing as the government already has a comprehensive broadband network, it should now "show a bit of common sense" and allow private businesses to "piggy-back" on it, he claimed.
Earlier this month, the CLA criticised Ofcom's decision to offer freedom of pricing to wholesale broadband providers such as BT in its bid to encourage investment in superfast services.
The group claimed that this would only widen the gulf between provision in rural and urban areas, putting people in more remote locations in danger of becoming "second-class citizens".
Categories: Broadband
