The Local Government Association, which describes itself as the national voice of councils across the United Kingdom, has launched the “Up to Speed” campaign that aims to ensure “everyone in rural areas gets access to superfast broadband” and that nobody is stuck in a “digital twilight zone”
The new campaign is partly being pushed as a response to the Government’s proposed 10Mbps (Megabits per second) Universal Service Obligation (USO), which many have interpreted to mean that nobody in the final 5% of the country (mostly rural areas) will receive “superfast” speeds of greater than 24Mbps. We explored this confusion in more depth yesterday (here) and so won’t repeat ourselves now, but suffice to say that the reality is more complicated and many in the final 5% should have an option to get 24Mbps+.
Never the less there will still be quite a few homes and businesses that might well miss out on fixed line or wireless based “superfast” speeds, although many of those who can’t get it could still expect to receive well above 10Mbps; this is the minimum required speed, but related connections are often able to deliver much faster performance.
However the LGA understandably believes that we should be aiming for universal coverage of superfast broadband and they perhaps rightly claim that 10Mbps “will soon become inadequate as new online services become available.” According to the LGA, the “average” household will need 19Mbps by 2023 (we think this has been taken from the BSG’s 2013 study).
Mark Hawthorne, Chair of the LGA’s People and Places Board, said:
“Achieving 10 Mbps should just be the start and something to build on because demand for and availability of faster speeds continues to grow. For the farmer applying for funding, the small business processing its invoices or the GP checking the availability of medicines, broadband is communities’ lifeblood.
Councils are best placed to understand the digital needs of local areas. They are at the centre of improving mobile connectivity through helping implement superfast broadband programmes, organising local initiatives to raise residents’ and businesses’ digital skills and working with mobile operators to best place infrastructure.”
In fairness the USO consultations have already recognised that the speed gauge may need to be lifted again in the future and as such it won’t be stuck at 10Mbps, although all of this is still very much subject to debate and until we know the final approach then it remains very difficult to know who will or won’t miss out on the best performance.
The LGA also said that the Government’s USO should include other elements too, such as to specify a minimum upload speed and this is something that no prior policy has ever managed to achieve. Upload speeds have become increasingly important in the modern world of social media and P2P based video games, although it’s still less important than download performance.
Mind you nobody has yet found a firm answer to the issue of cost, with BT suggesting that it could cost anything from a few hundred million pounds (via Long Reach VDSL) to a couple of billion (via normal FTTC/FTTP/G.fast) in order to deliver the USO as currently proposed. Various options are being explored, from special joint public / private investment funds to a possible levy (tax) on broadband ISPs. The latter would be complicated, not least since the Conservative Party ruled out a similar Labour idea before the 2010 General Election.
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