By silicon.com, 29 January 2009 17:16
NEWS
...Lord Carter is far more circumspect, deferring a decision on whether the public sector has a role to play in helping push out next-gen coverage.
"We will establish a government-led strategy group to assess the necessary demandside, supplyside and regulatory measures to underpin existing market-led investment plans, and to remove barriers to the timely rollout, beyond those declared plans, to maximise market-led coverage of next generation broadband," the report said.
"We will, by the time of the final Digital Britain Report, have considered the value for money case for whether public incentives have a part to play in enabling further next generation broadband deployment, beyond current market-led initiatives."
Speaking today, Lord Carter added there is no doubt the market would be able to fund the lion's share - between 60 and 65 per cent - of next-gen deployments in the UK, provided the regulatory conditions are suitable. Hooking up the other 30 to 35 per cent, however, could prove more tricky.
"We asked the question as to whether or not the market will take us beyond 60, 65 per cent or whether or not it will only get us there if there is a use of public incentives and I don't think we know the answer to that," Carter said.
However, he added: "The case for the value of next generation networks is probably clearer now than it's ever been."
Commenting on the report, Ian Fogg, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said that while the commitment to deliver universal service for broadband is "a worthy goal" the report is decidedly lacklustre on the issue of next-gen networks. "I don't think this report has enough in it about making sure that in urban areas we have internationally competitive broadband, fibre-powered broadband," he told silicon.com.
"This report talks about access to [up to] 2Mbps... the vast majority of the country has that available - in excess of 99 per cent depending on whose figures you use."
Fogg added: "If the focus is too much on making sure that broadband's widely available, we will have less of a digital divide but we will have achieved that by ending up with a lowest common denominator approachÂ… We need to make sure that both those things - deploying high speed fibre broadband and making broadband available throughout the country - both those things happen without sacrificing a competitive market."
There are now more than 30 separate local or community next generation broadband rollouts planned in Britain and under the plans set out today, the government will help implement a proposal for an umbrella body to be established in order to ensure these next generation networks are open and interoperable, as well as providing technical and advisory support.
The report also suggests the government is gearing up to tackle online piracy - setting out a commitment to legislate to require ISPs to notify copyright infringers their conduct is illegal.
"We also intend to require ISPs to collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers (derived from their notification activities) to be made available to rights-holders together with personal details on receipt of a court order," Lord Carter's report states.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. Peter Trinder
In West Sussex we could not wait and have a wireless network connecting us to a Unix server which goes out to the hot pipe. The provider has been awarded the top ISP award in this category. They claim over 500 customers already. Nice fast service. Just a small rectangular TX/RX box on a pole on my roof leading down by Ethernet cable.
2. Chris Goodman
Same New Labour, plans that cost but no idea where to get the money. It will be the people of the country who will pay for this infrastructure in the form of increased fibre optic line charges and broadband charges. It is just another form of taxation that will be imposed but without the grubby fingers of Labour getting their hands on it - except, of course, all that lovely VAT they will collect and installers NI going into the kitty.
3. Lionel A Smith
We have a broadband connection at home but much of the time it repeatedly disconnects making online transactions problematic. This includes banking, software updates and online purchasing. Connection drops have cause trouble during software roll-outs and updates (that went wrong) whilst setting up a new computer system. I still have a legacy of mess to sort out. Also I am repeatedly logged out of my own web site whilst updating via ftp because of drop outs. Dial up is often quicker and more reliable.
The cable broadband tech' support try to blame it on one having a third party internet security installation and ask you to turn it off whilst on-line to diagnose! Other favourites were those running Vista or having the wrong type of router or the wrong type of anything else that just happens to be on their check list.
I am considering my options as their service is not fit for purpose.
By the time I finish writing this the connection will have probably dropped again before I send. This is why I always create posts in a WP so that I don't haver to start all-over all of the time.
4. Chris Stening, Easynet Connect
The Internet is arguably the UK’s most important modern infrastructure. Homes and businesses across the UK rely on their Internet connections everyday, so any measures to bring the technology to as many people as possible is a good thing.
The question remains as to how the UK’s broadband should be delivered; through the existing copper phone network (DSL), fibre optics or wireless? Many argue that fibre is the only solution, resulting in copper being committed to the scrap heap prematurely. But fibre, having been around since the 1970s, is hardly a ‘new’ technology either. If the government wants to commit to broadband in every home, then the phone lines that run into almost every house in the country offer a ready-made solution. Copper based connections can easily exceed the 2Mbps speeds that Lord Carter’s report calls for, and recent innovations have reached speeds of 40Mbps. This is more than enough for most homes and business today.
5. Simon Allen
As has been pointed out:
1) Govt makes ruling
2) ISPs provide the service
3) ISPs charge all other users
4) Govt takes the cake and credit.
Then ... the Tories introduced cable TV and said it would revolutionise blah-blah. But they gave no money so practically nothing happened.
Now ... 20 years later, the Labourites are doing exactly the same thing!
It must be time to take my pills.