Government to reveal broadband strategy 'before Christmas'

Comms minister Jeremy Hunt will publish plans for universal broadband and next-generation broadband in the coming months

Government to reveal plan for rural broadband access before Christmas

The government plans to publish its strategy for universal broadband and next-generation broadband "before Christmas", according to the minister for culture, communications and the creative industries, Jeremy Hunt.

Addressing a recent Culture, Media and Sport Committee meeting, Hunt said: " The plan will lay the foundations for next-generation broadband to meet our stated objective of having the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015."

The government said in July that a "funding gap" meant it had to put back the date by which a minimum 2Mbit/s broadband access would be available to everybody in the UK to 2015.

The date as originally announced by the last Labour government in its Digital Britain report was 2012.

Hunt told the committee that there were 160,000 homes largely in remote areas that do not have access to broadband, and that more than nine million adults have never used the internet, compared with 30 million who use it every day.

When asked whether the broadband delivery plan would use freed-up analogue TV spectrum or some other means, Hunt said: "The government with take several routes. Our belief is that we should not back a particular technology, but try to create a climate that stimulates the maximum possible private sector investment."

At a Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) event in July, Hunt announced that there would be three concurrent projects set up to develop rural broadband projects.

BDUK is the body tasked with overseeing the rollout of the 2Mbit/s universal service commitment and the deployment of next-generation optical fibre network access.

Asked by the committee how well those projects were advancing, Hunt said " we're making good progress", but gave no further details on where the projects would be.