Shadow
chancellor George Osborne promised that a Conservative government would deliver
100Mbps broadband services to the 'majority' of homes by 2017. Part of this
might involve breaking up BT and giving competitors duct access.
Speaking
on the Andrew Marr show Osborne said "If there are some parts of the
country where the market can't get to; because I think the best way to deliver
this is by breaking up the British Telecom monopoly at the moment which holds
back companies like Carphone Warehouse or Virgin. If we find the market can't
do that, then use the BBC license fee, the digital switchover money in the
license fee, to get broadband out to the rest of the country, but let's see
first of all if we can have the market delivering that super-fast broadband."
"Technology is moving on and BT is at the forefront of that revolution. We are
investing £1.5 billion to get fibre to at least ten million homes by mid 2012
and we want to go further. Going substantially further will however - as we
have seen with other countries - require some form of public sector support and
so we look forward to engaging with politicians from every party".
Look
out for more Computer Weekly coverage tomorrow.
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Broadband is likely to become an election issue in some constituencies where speed and availability problems prevail. The Conservatives are proposing to fund next generation broadband in rural areas through the TV license instead of a new tax. They have also stated that they expect 100meg services to be available by 2017 for the majority of households, but they haven't yet provided details of what's going to happen to those currently excluded from broadband, or exactly how many of us will receive faster services.
On the other hand, the current government has not defined what it considers 'next generation' broadband in terms of speed, although it has given a commitment to reach 90% coverage by 2017. Clearly, all parties need to provide more information in the run up to the general election.