Posted: 05th Mar, 2011 By: MarkJ


The UK governments Chancellor of the Exchequer,
George Osborne, has announced the
second round of superfast broadband projects and set aside
£50m from the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) budget (
£530m by 2015) help fund it. The effort it part of their national broadband strategy -
Britain's Superfast Broadband Future.
The cash itself is designed to fill the "
Final Third" of approximately
9 Million premises, where broadband provision is either very slow or nonexistent, with faster connectivity. These are locations where
private sector investment alone cannot usually reach. Further guidance will be published on Monday next week.
Sadly the government has
not yet revealed which areas will benefit from the new funding, although those details are expected to be announced during late spring. The news comes amid
growing concern over the slow pace of progress, both in terms of government funding allocation and regulatory changes (
here).
The Chancellor, George Osborne, commented:
"Broadband is crucial for the country’s economic future; that’s why the coalition Government is investing over half a billion pounds in its infrastructure.
We want to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 and today’s £50m will benefit up to 800,000 homes and businesses. This is very much a locally-driven process and we encourage bids from all local people with plans for improving broadband in their local area."
It's understood that
Local Public Authorities will be able to apply to BDUK for this funding and
each area will be allocated around £5-10m. Local councils can also add some of their own budget into the mix and some operators ( BT ) have even pledged to match any public cash they receive with an equal amount of their own money.
The first wave of funding was originally agreed in October 2010 and covered a total of four superfast broadband ISP pilots in the
Highlands and Islands (Scotland),
Cumbria,
North Yorkshire and the
Golden Valley, Herefordshire (England).
The government aims to have the
best broadband in Europe (based on speed, coverage, price and choice) by 2015 and it hopes to achieve this by delivering "
a fibre point [into] every community in the UK" by 2015. In reality it has still only made a
Universal Service Commitment (USC) to deliver a minimum broadband speed of just 2Mbps to everybody.
Related News
7th Dec 2010 - Examining the UK Governments Digital Hubs for Superfast Rural Broadband
23rd Oct 2010 - UK Government Reveals Additional Superfast Rural Broadband Pilot Details