£30m cash injection to cure broadband woes

NEWS The Department of Trade and Industry will use the money to combat the urban/rural divide by investing in schemes that could help make the rollout of broadband services more commercially viable for operators. E-minister Patricia Hewitt said she hopes regional development agencies will pull together public bodies such as hospitals and schools that already use broadband, to increase the area's buying power. "I want to see online costs coming down for businesses for broadband and dial-up and to do that we need to get more competition and be tough on regulation," Hewitt said. To boost rollout of broadband access technologies, the DTI will be auctioning off the 26 regional licences at 28GHz which went unsold in the auction last autumn. Hewitt blamed market hype for the poor take up of licences. She told silicon.com: "A number of companies said that they were put off by all the talk of £1bn or so in licences fees. They hadn't gone in for the auction but actually given that the prices were very sensible and modest they were still interested in licences and that's why we are putting the unsold ones back on the table." Unlike the auction for 3G licences in May and the earlier 28GHz auction - companies will be able to pay the reserve price unless there is demand from competing telcos, in which case a mini auction will take place. However, on the issue of forcing BT to make unbundling local loop more commercially attractive to ISPs, the DTI defended Oftel's position, and claimed it had already taken great strides forward in opening up the local loop.