News - £1 billion next gen broadband initiative launched

[HEXUS]

A new bureaucracy responsible for pushing next gen broadband in the UK started work today.

Read more.

[Saracen]

You'd think that after all the discussion, the idiots that run the country would have noticed by now that it's flaming well in debt up to the eyebrows.

First rules of getting out of holes .... stop digging.

We know we're facing large cutbacks in public services, not to mention in pubic sector staffing levels. We know just about every department is going to have to trim services, or trim staff, or both. And yet they're still coming up with innovative ways to waste taxpayer money.

[matty-hodgson]

So they're spending a billion pounds making a working service a bit better, when they could plough that money into the NHS or schools or something, somewhere people would really like to see change.

[mmh]

the whole idea of everyone having broadband is proposterous anyway...

broadband is a luxery, not a commodity... if people in "less well off" areas want broadband, they should save thier pennies and buy it, not get given it...

yet again, its the middle class that suffer...

Give the scrubbers stuff we have to pay for, using money they took off us...

I'm sure £1billion might go a long way to improve the outdated infrastructure already in place... rather than pledging to make eveyr household with broadband...

this makes me angry...

[aidanjt]

So they're spending a billion pounds making a working service a bit better, when they could plough that money into the NHS or schools or something, somewhere people would really like to see change.

Naw, see, they tried throwing limitless volumes of cash on the NHS and schools before everything went tits up, and that didn't work then either.

But still, the fact that they created an entire bureaucracy and threw 1 billion quid (which is now worth what 600 million quid was a few years ago) at something which isn't much of a problem reminds me just how hopelessly clueless Labour is.

[ilh]

So this money is only to get next gen broadband (whatever that means) to only 20% of the country if they think that 70% of the country will get it through general market advancements and their target is 90%. Seems quite silly really.

BT seem to be sorting stuff out anyway on the backend. This week i've been getting a peak download speed nearly double what I normally get, 700+KBps up from 400+KBps.

[pollaxe]

Where I live I'd be grateful for just current gen broadband.

[MrMyst]

So they're spending a billion pounds making a working service a bit better, when they could plough that money into the NHS or schools or something, somewhere people would really like to see change.

definitely!!!

[usxhe190]

Given this is the government and we know they can't achieve the end result anyways, I suggest they give me the £1 billion and move on.