Public cash spreads ADSL

After years of paying lip service to promoting broadband Britain, the government has taken its biggest step yet to make the vision a reality.

It has advertised for telecoms carriers and service providers to install broadband for a host of central and local government departments.

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) last week began putting a series of lucrative contracts out to tender, to procure broadband services for central and local government offices, schools, hospitals and health centres in all regions of the UK.

The idea is to lure carriers and service providers such as BT into putting broadband links into areas where infrastructure investment would normally yield little profit.

"The intention is to leverage public sector demand for broadband services in more out-of-the-way places," said Tim Johnson of analyst firm Ovum.

"(This will) create a business case for BT or somebody else to provide broadband in areas where it would not otherwise appear."

Keith Todd, chairman of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, a government advisory body, said, "The public sector has a critical role to stimulate investment and demand in rural areas." He added that fixed wireless, satellite and 3G technology, as well as DSL and cable, all have a "massive" part to play in the rollout of broadband access.

Bob Griffith, national secretary of Socitm, a body for public-sector IT managers, said the government was moving in the right direction. "Broadband offers local authorities the chance to improve communications with citizens," Griffith said. "A number of rural councils such as East Riding have set up unmanned Internet kiosks because they cannot afford to put council offices in remote areas. Video streaming will allow residents to have face-to-face conversations with someone in the central office."

But Ovum's Johnson warned that the complexities of aggregating central and local government services over regional broadband networks might hamper broadband services in many regions. "It will prove hard to consolidate the needs of schools, the MoD and various other departments," he said.

Meanwhile BT Wholesale has responded to criticism of its broadband strategy by adding 169 sites to the list of exchanges to offer ADSL if between 200 and 500 local users promise to subscribe. Since the beginning of July more than 47,000 individuals have registered an interest via service providers, according to BT Wholesale.

BT Wholesale broadband director Bruce Stanford said, "We're looking forward to seeing the first exchanges reach their trigger levels so we can offer ADSL where true demand has been identified through this scheme."

UK'S BROADBAND BALANCE SHEET
1,115 exchanges made DSL-capable

595 exchanges with DSL trigger set

74 exchanges without trigger level

231 exchanges under review

66% of consumers covered

68% of businesses covered

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