Government pushes back 2Mbit/s access to 2015

Full 2Mbit/s UK broadband access timeframe slips to 2015

The government has pushed back the date by which it will deliver universal broadband to 2015 from the 2012 deadline originally proposed in the Digital Britain report.

The universal rollout of 2Mbit/s, which was the Universal Service Commitment (USC) proposed, is to be upheld.

Speaking at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said that the previous government had not put sufficient funding into the USC.

"So while we will keep working towards the 2012 deadline, we've set ourselves a more realistic target of rolling that out within the lifetime of this Parliament," said Hunt.

The meeting at BIS was an industry day organised by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), the organisation set up to deliver the USC and superfast broadband – next-generation access to 100Mbit/s optical fibre networks.

At the event, the government launched a discussion paper entitled Broadband Deployment and Sharing Other Utilities Infrastructure, and asked the industry for ideas and responses to it by 16 September 2010.

Addressing how the USC and superfast broadband would be rolled out, BDUK's chief executive Adrian Kamellard said it would set up three projects in different rural locations to attend to the problem.

The procurement process will be finalised in the autumn, with projects ready to start early next year.

Ed Vaizey, minister for culture, communications and creative industries, said the business rates charged by the Valuations Office Agency on optical fibre would have to be "revenue neutral to the treasury."

This means that the controversial fibre tax would not be reduced or abolished, but that the amount fibre network providers are liable to pay may change.

Reducing or abolishing the fibre tax for fibre providers would be a shot in the arm for companies that are shying away from rolling out fibre networks.

The discussion turned to radio spectrum allocation associated with the move from analogue to digital TV broadcasting and how this will be distributed.

"We'll be making an announcement about this at the end of July," said Vaizey.

Spectrum allocation will be critical to the USC, since increased spectrum for mobile operators might help deliver broadband to areas where it is not economically viable to lay cable.

But to be able to provide this service, mobile operators need to know what radio spectrum they will be allocated.

That process is being looked into by the independent spectrum broker Kip Meek and UK comms regulator Ofcom. Ofcom is rumoured to be announcing its sell-off plans later this month, with the auction expected by mid-2011.