Digital Britain broadband plans in trouble

The Digital Britain broadband for all plans, revealed earlier this year by Lord Carter, may have run into problems due to rows with mobile phone company bosses.

Earlier this year Lord Carter, the Communications Minister, released his interim Digital Britain report, which included details about the plan to provide a minimum of 2Mbps broadband access to everyone in the country. However, despite these plans a problem may have arisen due to a row with bosses of the mobile phone companies.

It has been revealed that the broadband for all plans that formed part of the Digital Britain report may have run into problems as a result of these rows, which have erupted due to Lord Carter trying to get regulators to ringfence part of the airwaves for the use of mobile broadband.

The plan in the Digital Britain report was to get broadband access for everyone by 2012. Carter has been in talks with the mobile broadband giants with the aim of getting mobile broadband into rural areas of the UK. Mobile broadband forms a vital part of Carter’s ambitious plans to get broadband to all within the timeframe set out in his Digital Britain report.

The bosses of some of the mobile giants are prepared to fight to keep their capacity, and according to reports the UK’s communications regulator is not too keen to relax its rules with regards to the allocation of airwaves. This could lead to a series of negotiations, which could cause delays, and Lord Carter has said that unless a deal can be struck by the end of this month between the five mobile giants he is impose a settlement that will mean sharing the spectrum from Vodafone and O2 with the rival mobile operators.