The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) has warned that Lord Carter's Digital Britain Report (here) pledge of making a minimum UK broadband speed of 2012 available to everybody by 2012 may not be enough. The warning is part of CRC's 'Mind the Gap: Digital England - a rural perspective' (Adobe Reader .PDF) report.


Interestingly the CRC initially appears to agree with Carter's Digital Britain report, sighting three potential methods for deploying a 2Mbps USC: Upgrades to existing land-lines, Mobile Broadband / Wi-Fi (Wireless) and Satellite .

However, unlike Digital Britain, the CRC do highlight problems with capacity and flexibility on Mobile Broadband networks, not to mention the latency and similar flexibility issues that appear to be inherent with Satellite; the latter is termed a “stop-gap” solution by the report due to its limitations.

Curiously the report claims that Mobile Broadband services are "based on low transfer allowances and high per-Megabit fees for excess use", which is somewhat unfair given the current packages on offer. Certainly excessive use fees are a problem, although most packages are well priced and some offer very attractive usage allowances.


It's worth pointing out that two key issues - that of Satellite affordability (hardware costs in particular) and Mobile Broadband service restrictions (inability to use VoIP etc.) - do not appear to have been well covered in the report.