Stephen Carter, theMinister for Communications, Technology and
Broadcasting, has defended the government's
plans to establish 2mbs as the baseline foruniversal broadband
access.
Speaking at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and
the Arts (NESTA), in his
first
speech since producing his
interim Digital Britain report last month, Stephen Carter said
that he chose 2mbs because it was acheivable.
Carter has come under fire for critics who claim it lacks
ambition and could leave the UK in the broadband slow lane.
But Stephen
Carter said: "The judgement we made was that 2Mbps was the
lowest speed which would allow us to deliver most public services
at an acceptable user experience."
He said this baseline was a key platform for creating digital
government and and digital public services.
Carter revealed that he agreed to produce the report in the
knowledge that his findings would contribute to government
policy.
"One of the options was for this to be the Carter Review, in
other words one of the options was I could have done a report to
government," he said. "But this is not a report to government but
of government and it therefore is government policy."
He said many reports to the government are carried out in the
full knowledge that they are not going to be implemented.
"This tries to work in the real world of how we can still make
changes given the issues, the opportunity and the limitations and
the ambitions," added Carter. "It was on that basis I accepted the
Prime Minister's offer to spend some time looking at this
sector."
Listen to Carter's speech >>
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