House of Lords select committee slams UK broadband rollout

Rural areas left behind as government is said to be preoccupied with broadband speed

A lack of progress in closing the digital divide between urban and rural areas has been caused by the government being preoccupied with the delivery of certain broadband speeds to consumers, according to the House of Lords Communications Committee.

In its 'Broadband for all – an alternative vision' report, the committee said that government policy on delivering certain speeds to consumers has "had a detrimental effect on policy-making and the long-term national interest".

It said that the government needed to focus on the "spectre of a widening digital divide", which could leave some people and businesses behind.

It suggested that the government should return to its previous plan to offer open-access fibre-optic hubs within reach of every community, arguing that current plans for BT's fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) product go against the idea of "an open access fibre-optic hub in which anyone is permitted to build a link between premises in the community and a fibre in the hub".

In terms of broadband speed, the committee acknowledged that a FTTH product would require much investment and therefore endorsed the following idea:

"Given limited resources, policy should be directed at building out an infrastructure to a high specification, not necessarily all the way to people's doors but within their reach, and providing them with the technical and affordable means to connect to it in whatever way they choose themselves."

Ovum's regulation practice leader, Matthew Howett, criticised the committee for failing to explain how much its 45 recommendations would cost and how they would be funded, adding that therefore the report "is likely to be dismissed as nothing more than a pipe dream".

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House of Lords select committee slams UK broadband rollout

Rural areas left behind as government is said to be preoccupied with broadband speed

"Despite criticising the government for dismissing technologies such as white space, [the report] fails to make almost any mention of how mobile might contribute to bringing broadband to all areas of the UK. Other than a recommendation that all existing spectrum should be handed over to mobile operators – with current TV traffic moving over to IP – with seemingly no consideration of the consequence this would have on bandwidth demands or incentives to invest in the network," he stated.

In response to the report, a BT spokesperson said: "This report calls for fibre broadband to be brought within reach of as many communities as possible via an open network. That is already happening with BT making fibre available to a further four million homes alone whilst the committee has deliberated.

"This new network – which already passes 11 million homes and which will soon pass millions more – is open to all ISPs on an equal basis and more than 50 ISPs are using it.

"Companies can also lay their own fibre using BT's ducts and poles should they wish so there is plenty of room for competition. This level of open access is unparalleled in Europe and so the UK is well placed to have one of the best super-fast networks in the continent by 2015."

One of government body Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK)'s primary goals was specified in 2010 by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, that by 2015 "[the government] wants Britain to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe".

In May, Karin Ahl, president of the non-profit organisation FTTH Council Europe told Computing that the UK is behind Europe in its implementation of fibre broadband connections because the government and industry "don't know the need for it" and targets are not set high enough.