No Government money for fibre broadband... yet

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 29 Jan 2009 at 13:57

The Government has declined to commit public money to the rollout of a fibre broadband network in its Digital Britain report.

Communications Minister Lord Carter's report says the Government will wait and see how far private investment stretches before committing to any public cash.

"We will establish a Government-led strategy group to assess the necessary demand-side, supply-side and regulatory measures to underpin existing market-led investment plans, and to remove barriers to the timely rollout, beyond those declared plans, to maximise market-led coverage of Next Generation broadband.

"This Strategy Group will, by the time of the final Digital Britain Report, assess the case for how far market-led investment by Virgin Media, BT Group plc and new network enterprises will take the UK in terms of roll-out and likely take-up; and whether any contingency measures, as recommended by the Caio review, are necessary."

Carter doesn't rule out the possibility of public money, however. "We will, by the time of the final Digital Britain Report, have considered the value for money case for whether public incentives have a part to play in enabling further next generation broadband deployment, beyond current market-led initiatives."

The lack of a Government spending commitment comes after Gordon Brown suggested that public money could be used on a fibre network.

However, one of Lord Carter's own "Digital Experts", Francesco Caio, claimed the case for Government investment was "weak at best" in his review of Next Generation Access last year.

Universal broadband obligation

The report also confirms the widely-trailed plans for a new Universal Service Commitment that will ensure everyone in the UK has access to broadband.

"We will develop plans for a digital Universal Service Commitment to be effective by 2012, delivered by a mixture of fixed and mobile, wired and wireless means," the report claims.

"Subject to further study of the costs and benefits, we will set out our plans for the level of service which we believe should be universal. We anticipate this consideration will include options up to 2Mbits/sec."