Superfast broadband for the Highlands of Scotland and beyond.
I was particularly interested to see the announcement of superfast broadband which a Conservative Government will introduce. Clearly business and so many individuals now use the internet that it has become an essential way to do business and has opened up so many opertunities especially for home working.
Living in the Highlands of Scotland in a very rural area has its limitations as far as working in relation to the internet and doing business online goes and this announcement is a very welcome one indeed.
This is indeed the way forward and will help boost our economy and market share on a global basis.
Jim Ferguson
Nationwide superfast broadband by 2017
Monday, February 1 2010
As part of our plans to Get Britain Growing, the Conservatives have unveiled plans to help make the UK the first major European country that has superfast broadband in the majority of homes by 2017.
Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said “we are currently one of the slowest countries in the developed world for broadband”, but with the Conservatives “we’ll become one of the fastest”.
He said Britain’s digital and creative industries “must have a proper communications infrastructure” if they are to become “world beaters”.
The Conservative approach to achieving this has three key components:
- We will create a regulatory framework to ensure the roll-out of superfast broadband at speeds of up to 100mbps to the majority of homes across the UK by 2017. This could involve either mobile or fixed line solutions and will be significantly faster than the Government’s proposed target. Our objective is to make the UK the first major European country to achieve this aim, securing its place as a European and global hub for the creative industries.
- We will end BT’s local loop monopoly by allowing other operators to use their ducts and poles thereby encouraging competition in the superfast broadband market. This approach has proved successful in other countries such as Singapore and South Korea: these countries are global leaders in superfast broadband infrastructure.
- We are committed to universal access to superfast broadband speeds. If the market does not deliver this in certain areas we will consider using the proportion of the licence fee dedicated to digital switchover to finance superfast broadband roll out under the new BBC licence fee settlement, starting in 2012. This amount would be leveraged to maximise the investment made, either by making it available as loans or on a matched funding basis.
Under these plans, Hunt said that “high speeds will be available not just in our cities but across the rural areas that have been left behind for too long”.
“These regulatory changes will create the right conditions for sustainable growth and ensure that the digital sector plays a leading role in a competitive, balanced economy”, he added.
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2 Responses to “Superfast broadband for the Highlands of Scotland and beyond.”
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It would be nice if the Highlands were first, not last, as is usual.
Why should urban areas, who already have good broadband speeds, benefit beforecertain rural areas who suffer poor speeds? A super fast speed for recreational purposes should take second place to suitable speeds for business.
I completely agree with John. it isn’t far that us here in the highlands of scotland are getting left behind with terrible internet speeds. my buisness is run of the internet 100% i require speeds that are very fast. I have several servers hosted all over the world that i need to acess. These servers are on 100MB lines but if i can only access them with a terrible 5mb connections! and we don’t even have 1mb!