Report shows that high speed broadband is needed in the countryside

Following on from the recently released Digital Britain report a new report has warned that the government must work hard to prevent rural communities in the UK from falling too far behind when it comes to broadband access.

In order to keep the rural areas in the UK level with cities and other urban locations a number of recommendations, including a call for community-based broadband schemes to receive more support, have been made in a report by the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC).

In order for high-speed broadband networks to be deployed in the rural parts of the country a different kind of business model would be required, especially if the government was to ever achieve its promise of 2Mbps broadband access to everyone in the country by 2012.

The announcement of a tax on telephone lines was made as part of the Digital Britain report and is part of the strategy for funding that will see rural parts of the community getting next generation broadband services.

Although these latest moves may not be enough the moves were welcomed by the CRC spokesman.

He advised “There is a danger, with the 2 megabits promise, that people will regard that as job done.”

As many as 42 percent of the UK’s rural communities currently have sub 2Mbps broadband connections and the cost implications of rolling out a next-generation of broadband to these rural areas has always been considered to be too expensive.

This cost has raised serious questions about the 50p that will be collected from everyone who has a telephone line through this new telephone tax and be used to help to fund the provision of high-speed broadband service in the rural areas. The big question is whether this new tax will be anywhere near enough to fund a rollout of this size.

Source – http://news.bbc.co.uk