Communications minister Lord Carter will release his interim
report into
Digital Britain at lunchtime today.
The report will give the clearest indication yet of government's
plans to reshape the UK's £50bn communications business as
broadcast and point to point networks converge into digital
bitstreams.
He is expected to address the wisdom of placing a universal
service obligation on all communications service providers instead
of BT only, as at present. This could mean that possibly every
person in the country would have access to a 2Mbps connection.
He is also expected to address the need to protect the value of
intellectual property such as music, film and video in online
environments, where the technology has destroyed the traditional
business models for publishing and distribution.
Industry experts estimate it would cost between £5bn and £29bn
to run optical fibre to the 24 million UK households. However, this
could drop dramatically if radio frequencies were freed to allow
high-speed links between the home and the nearest cable.
Computer and communications equipment makers would welcome a
national plan to roll out super-fast (greater than 50Mbps) networks
as this would encourage consumers to upgrade their equipment.
The civil engineering needed to replace copper cables with fibre
would create thousands of jobs in the recession-hit construction
industry, which could make it an appealing option for
government.
However, businesses, especially those in urban areas, can pretty
much buy as much capacity as they need. They are more concerned
with reliability and choice.