Four legs good, two legs better: Why no amount of Cameron policy will attain full UK fast broadband coverage by 2020

Once again, we're promised a new date for "superfast" broadband - which means 10Mbps per second or higher - as if it's a positive advantage rather than another lazy delay.

Prime minister David Cameron has announced the British public will now have a legal right to fast broadband, with the introduction of a "safety net" to make sure every part of the UK will have a superfast connection by 2020.

While it's recently been claimed that Cameron has a closer affinity with certain animals common to the British countryside than anybody imagined, it's clear that the provision of broadband to those rural areas has never been a top priority, and nothing in today's glib announcement seems set to tackle that truth.

Apart from the buzz-phrase about advancing the "digital mission", this new promise is no better backed up than it was the past couple of times, when we were promised fast nationwide coverage first by 2015 (by which time the coalition government of 2010 announced that the UK would enjoy the fastest internet speeds in Europe), then 2018.

While Cameron is expected to reveal more of this new stalling tactic next week, it's as yet unclear how a broadband rollout steeped in professional laziness, lack of focus and commercial rivalries can be legitimately affected by a "promise" from on high.

"Access to the internet shouldn't be a luxury; it should be a right - absolutely fundamental to life in 21st century Britain. That is why I'm announcing a giant leap in my digital mission for Britain," said Cameron in a speech today.

"Just as our forebears effectively brought gas, electricity and water to all, we're going to bring fast broadband to every home and business that wants it."

The rollout is progressing - with 83 per cent of homes and businesses currently experiencing speeds of 10Mbps or higher, with John Whittingdale, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, announcing earlier this year that superfast broadband was still on track for a 95 per cent rollout by 2017.

So why Dave's posturing about electricity, water and safety nets if we seem more or less on track? Apart from the usual political trick of trying to sound impressive for the hell of it, the reality is that the final 20 per cent of installations is causing the most friction, with obstacles everybody at Whitehall knows full well can't be overcome by the original 2018 target date.

While almost every well-populated area is enjoying around 20Mbps per second at the minimum, and fibre is now taking hold in most towns with speeds up to 100Mbps fairly common, rural areas continue to bring down the average.

That's as much to do with the infrastructure these areas lack as much as what appears to be an ingrained attitude not to serve them.

Speaking to Computing earlier this year on the topic, ex-BT CTO and rural broadband activist Peter Cochrane has lamented the entire model behind broadband infrastructure, with the continued emphasis on funding for BT and their FTTC [fibre to the cabinet] holding back, he believes, scope for rural rollout.

In the Suffolk village of Ufford where Cochrane lives, he claims the inhabits dug their own trenches for cables, and fitted their own lines with "no funding whatsoever" while BT wanted £140,000 to do a similar job - and would have fit FTTC rather than FTTH [fibre to the home].

"The big worry is the fantastic waste of money of putting in fibre to the cabinet with copper, and then in five years rip it all out and put in fibre to the home, and start all over again," Cochrane told Computing at the time.

"They're doing the same job over and over. With fibre all the way, they'd be future proof. They could get that to the rural community first, and with consultancy, let the community do it themselves."

At the same time, Computing recently reported on how Vodafone has claimed BT has been masking "hidden failures" in its broadband installations, lying about the figures in its rollout and leading to professional dispute as Vodafone finds itself relying on BT to run its own service.

With Ofcom now leading an investigation into this area, there's again a much deeper area of concern here than a simple need for the government to agree to somehow speed up a process that's stalling for reasons a glib blanket promise can't cover.

As with anything in a society increasingly led by free market thinking and the direct bottom-line usefulness of any given project, it seems there are few use cases to sort out BT's approach and speed up rollout to areas outside major industrial hubs.

To put it simply: there is not enough taxable business happening in rural areas for the government to bother giving it decent speeds.

No amount of grandstanding about utilities can fix this government's ingrained prejudices.