UPD VIDEO BBC South Today Looks at the Problem of Rural Broadband

BBC South Today recently ran a short TV story on the plight of rural areas and their lack of fast broadband. The piece uses the example of Little London in Hampshire (England, UK), which in April last year became one of the first to deliver speeds of up to 40Mbps through clever use of a local fibre optic Public Service Network (here).

Rural homes and businesses often feel unfairly treated because they’re asked to pay the same or sometimes a lot more than everybody else but still get significantly less in return (i.e. slower speeds and less reliable connectivity). In fairness this is because it costs a lot more for big ISPs to deploy and maintain the telecoms infrastructure in remote areas.

The below video also includes a brief interview with Piers Daniell, Managing Director of UK business ISP Fluidata.

It’s often hoped that the government’s £530m Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme will help to solve the problem, although this is currently designed to focus on the first 90% of homes and businesses by mid-2015. Sadly that still leaves the last 10% of predominantly rural areas to fend for themselves.

However it’s widely expected that an extra £300m of funding for the post-2015 to 2017 period, which will come from the BBC TV Licence fee, will be used in related rural areas.

UPDATE 11:31am

BBC South Today also did a second and third video on the issue of rural broadband, in-between the above one, which singles out BT for additional criticism.