Queen's speech promises to 'create the right' for high-speed broadband in 'every household'

"Automatic" compensation promised for anyone who does not get at least 10Mbps broadband - with faster speeds promised in time

The government has promised that "measures will be brought forward" to "create the right" for every household in the UK to have access to high-speed broadband, with "automatic" compensation for those who do not.

Presenting the government's programme for the next Parliament in The Queen's Speech at the state opening of Parliament, she said that the proposed Digital Economy Bill will "make the UK a world leader in digital provision", in which the country would be "ceaselessly" transformed by technology.

"Legislation will be introduced to ... make the United Kingdom a world leader in the digital economy," the Queen said in the speech.

Broadband promises would be underwritten by a "new Broadband Universal Service Obligation", which "expects" minimum UK broadband speed to be 10Mbps "initially". The Bill would also, however, deliver direct power to Ofcom to "review the speed over time to make sure it is still sufficient for modern life".

Ofcom would also be given the power to release data on customer complaints and accurate broadband speed data to help customers better navigate the market. "Automatic compensation" is also promised for "when things go wrong" with a broadband service.

The Bill lays out welcome developments for UK customers still - as Computing has covered at length in the recent past - suffering from poor quality connections, especially in low bandwidth areas, while certain government ministers regularly tout their own apparent success with fast broadband rollout.

However, the so-called "new" nature of the Universal Service Obligation is slightly strange phrasing in that 10Mbps has been the government's supposed service standard since Prime Minister David Cameron's speech on the matter back in November 2015.

At the time, Cameron also spoke of access to superfast broadband as a "right", too.

Ofcom laid out its own spin on the plans last week, mentioning an idea to harness a "sub-band" within the 5GHz frequency range (most routers currently use the 2.4GHz frequency), while also "ensuring protection for other users, such as satellite services".

While both the Queen and the government seem to be presenting old promises as new ones today, it is encouraging to see realistic provision starting to be made for rural and other ‘notspot' areas of the UK to counter the ongoing bluster of politicians.

However, Paul Evans, CEO of internet speed ‘boosting' company Boosty, is concerned that the UK's infrastructure isn't robust enough to support such changes within the time-frames envisaged by government.

"Realistically, even if the government's plans are pushed through, it could still take up to five or six years to roll out superfast fibre broadband," said Evans.

"By then the broadband infrastructure and may not be sufficient enough to support a new generation of digital services."