News - £1.1 billion funding hole in super-fast broadband plans

[HEXUS]

Will targets be met through private investment instead?

Read more.

[aidanjt]

Will targets be met through private investment instead?

Surely the whole reason for public investment in the first place was the lack of private investment?

Frankly, I'm not sure why BT was ever privatised (aside from conservitard cronynomics) if it can't even pick its nose without public funding.

[Noxvayl]

Agree with aidanjt, BT is a case study of why privatisation is not always useful.

[Phage]

I'm involved with our local bid, and the situation is more complex than the article suggests. There are two different projects under way with two different funding schemes.

There's the BDUK which is run by the County Council and aims to supply 90% of the population with some sort of fibre based network. Think towns and cities, FTTC, controlled by BT. I think that this is the project the article is referring to. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04...bduk_funds_bt/

"Each County Local Authority has or is currently developing a Local Broadband Plan, setting out how Superfast Broadband services will be established to cover 90% of the UK. A “Standard Broadband” service (minimum of 2Mbps) will be extended to the remaining 10% ‘hard to reach’ areas covered by these national rollout plans. A 2Mbps service is generally sufficient for most current domestic and low-data intensity business needs, such as email, online banking and other financial transactions, tax returns and transfer of standard electronic documents."

There is a second layer of projects jointly funded by DEFRA and Euro-cash to provide super-fast access to the remaining 10%. i.e. the annulus around each town.

[dcwt2010]

Although it might be unpopular, all that money should've been given to BTw and that should've lead to much faster deployment of faster broadband. Instead we've got this low drawn out process where not a lot is done...

[miniyazz]

Although it might be unpopular, all that money should've been given to BTw and that should've lead to much faster deployment of faster broadband. Instead we've got this low drawn out process where not a lot is done...

That would be fair. Besides, wasn't that practically what happened anyway?

[Sickorz]

What frustrates me more then anything with this situation is that all the major telecoms companys keep upgrading places that already have the governments deffinition of "super fast" broadband.
All the major cities keep getting speed increases and infrastructure upgrades mean while the rest of the country is left with poor infrastucture and slow speeds.
If they spread the funding more evenly throughout the country they could meet the targets no problem!