Tories told to back fibre broadband pledge with cash

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 7 Jan 2009 at 16:54

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has told the Conservatives to back their fibre broadband pledge with a spending commitment.

Earlier this week, Conservative leader David Cameron said a Tory Government would do "everything it can" to bring fibre to British homes within a decade.

That followed the Prime Minister's suggestion that the Government may fund a fibre rollout.

But the CLA says the politicians need to pay more than lip service to fibre. "It's good he [Cameron] has recognised there's a need for fibre," Douglas Chalmers, director of CLA North told PC Pro. "It's all well and good saying it's a good thing, but we need money behind it."

Chalmers is urging the Government to follow the German model of pumping public money into laying fibre in parts of the country that will never be attractive to private investors. "Private companies tend to go where the money is," he says. "We want rural areas to be on the same competitive footing [as major towns and cities]."

The CLA chair refutes suggestions that rural businesses don't need the ultra-high speeds offered by fibre-to-the-home. "We want to get away from the perception that high-speed broadband is simply about playing games," he says.

"There are many farmers looking for a chance to diversify - and they're the ones at the end of the copper lines."

A report compiled by the Broadband Stakeholder Group last year calculated it would cost at least £28bn to lay a nationwide fibre-to-the-home network.