Providers warn of possible superfast digital divide

As part of Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), the government has set 2015 as the year when all households and business establishments in the UK will have access to speeds of 2Mbps on their Internet connections. Another goal was to ensure that the UK will have the “best superfast broadband in Europe” by 2015 as well.

The program and its goals are very much relevant today, as more and more businesses are turning to the World Wide Web to expand their presence, reach, and business. The recently released State of the Internet report by Akamai, however, dealt quite a blow, as it revealed that broadband speeds in the UK were still slower than many global hot spots. The report also stated that no UK cities were able to make it into the top 100 list of areas for global performance broadband speeds, which was largely dominated by Japanese cities.

Speakers at the recently held Westminster eForum also gave their two cents on the matter, saying that around 10% of the UK will not be able to get access to superfast broadband even at the end of the decade. They cited the lack of government funding as the reason for this.

In November of this year, Fujitsu stepped into the UK broadband scene, pledging to bring a fibre-to-the-home network to a third of the country that has been bypassed by commercial broadband rollouts. Fujitsu will be making use of £530 million funding that the government has allocated for rural broadband. However, the firm’s progress has been slow at best, managing to build only three networks in Wales, North Yorkshire and Cumbria so far.

The problem is not on the funding, but due to areas that prove too difficult or too costly when it came to setting up the fibre network. Fujitsu’s business unit director, Bill MacKenzie, stated: “Even with government funding there are parts of the UK where the business case will not work.”

Group director of strategy and policy at BT, Sean Williams, agreed, saying that the current funding available would only provide 90% of the UK with the planned services. However, Williams predicted a bright future for the percentage that would get fibre rolled out in their areas, as “over half would have speeds of more than 100 megabits” before 2020.

Arqiva’s managing director of mobile, Alastair Davidson, commented that while 10% might seem like a small percentage, the resulting gap between the sectors that do or do not have access to the technology will be huge. Drawing on an analogy, Davidson stated: “The 90% will have a Ferrari and the 10% a bicycle.”

MacKenzie called on the government to drum up efforts and “speed things up” in order to achieve the goals that it had set for the country. “2015 might seem a long time away but it is not in network building terms if we genuinely want to bring superfast broadband to the final third.”

Source – BBC