Coalition needs to focus on rollout of broadband across UK

There have been calls for the newly formed coalition government, headed by David Cameron as Prime Minister, to focus more on the rollout of broadband across the UK amidst fears that the UK will fall even further behind in the broadband stakes.

It was recently reported following the formation of the coalition government in the UK that broadband issues were most likely to be pushed towards the bottom of the agenda in coalition talks, with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, determined to focus on dealing with the multi-billion pound public deficit that the Labour government left behind.

However, there have now been calls for the ConDem coalition to tackle the broadband problems and focus on the rollout of broadband across the UK sooner rather than later, with many concerned that if the issue is not addressed quickly it could lead to the UK falling even further behind when it comes to the broadband stakes.

With so many other problems to deal with, and given that this is the first coalition government in over three decades and has only come into power very recently, it is unlikely that they will be looking at broadband rollout as a matter of priority according to some. If the matter is not addressed as quickly as many have been hoping it could cause problems for the UK, leaving the nation lagging behind further compared to other major economies.

However, one industry official said: ‘In 2009 there were 466.95 million broadband customers in the world and only 18,356,000 of those were in the UK. We’re sixth in the world in terms of broadband user figures but we’re behind other thriving countries such as US, Japan and China.’

Source – BCS