Broadband Deals
Articles on the topic : Broadband News
Martha Lane Fox Plans Broadband For Poorest
The Government’s new “Digital Inclusion Champion”, Martha Lane Fox, has outlined her plans to get broadband to the UK’s poorest homes as part of her universal broadband access remit.
There are around 6 million people currently without broadband access who rely heavily upon government aid.
In a statement to the Financial Times Lane Fox said, “The people left behind in technology are being left behind in many spheres of their lives. That is not right and it is not good enough”.
It is thought that if broadband can be set up in the UK’s poorest homes, it will also help to cut government public spending.
Around 80% of interaction that the government has with the public is with the poorer community while it is estimated that 70% of people living in social housing have no internet access.
This, according to Lane Fox, is what is damaging government public spending. She said, “By keeping them offline you are inherently keeping the cost of government high”.
However, there is concern among MPs that forcing people online will create isolation and increase social exclusion. It is one thing being encouraged to get online, but some feel that the government are actually trying to force people online instead of just encouraging it.
Lane Fox’s Digital Inclusion Initiative aims to educate those in the poorer sector who have no prior knowledge of the benefits of the internet. Whether the scheme will work is yet to be seen but Lane Fox is adamant that these outline plans will help in the long run.
Broadband Speeds To Be Investigated By MPs
MPs are set to investigate the UK’s broadband speeds after the publication of the Digital Britain Report on the 16th June.
The aim of the investigation is to understand whether the goal of 2Mbps broadband speeds in every home within the UK is “ambitious enough” (South Korea have recently set a minimum broadband speed limit of 1Gbps).
They are also looking into whether the 50p broadband tax plans are fair.
Many critics of the 50p broadband tax plans are dubious as to whether the tax raised will be enough to fund the roll out of next generation broadband to the reported 30% of UK homes that are currently without adequate broadband access.
There are even doubts as to whether the goal to have 2Mbps broadband speeds in every UK home is achievable, not to mention whether they are fast enough.
As yet another investigation gets underway, some industry specialists are concerned that the Digital Britain Report may not survive a change in government and that the broadband industry itself is being bogged down by ongoing investigations and reports, rather than actual action.
UK Urged To Follow Isle of Man Broadband Lead
The UK has been urged to follow the lead set by the Isle Of Man’s new advanced broadband network.
The Isle of Man may only be 34 miles long and have a population of roughly 80,000, but its broadband infrastructure will soon be better than it is in the UK.
Manx Telecom, the Isle of Man’s telecommunications firm, is currently putting in place an advanced broadband network upgrade, known as the Next Generation Network.
This will provide minimum home broadband speeds of 5.6Mbps and 3.6Mbps for mobile broadband. This puts the UK’s 2Mbps broadband goal for all UK homes to shame.
The advanced broadband network infrastructure will be implemented by the end of the summer, resulting in every home on the island having broadband access, whilst also giving a further boost to the economy.
The director of eBusiness in the Treasury Department of the Isle of Man, Tim Craine, told the publication computerweekly.com, “The political endorsement is there to drive eBusiness. The Isle of Man is serious about growing our e-business and IT sectors and for the size of the island we have a disproportionate amount of investment.”
Battle For Faster Rural Broadband Continues
The battle to get faster broadband access for rural areas in the UK continues this week following the publication of a new report.
The report, created by the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), contains several recommendations to ensure rural areas are not left behind in the broadband speed race. These include the need for faster broadband network infrastructure to be introduced in the countryside.
2Mbps for all UK homes is the current government broadband speed goal, however, it is feared that this will be nowhere near enough for rural areas.
There are currently 42% of rural homes in the UK struggling with broadband connections that are lower than 2Mbps. Whilst increasing the speed limit to 2Mbps will help, the main concern is that once the goal is reached, no more work will be carried out to further increase broadband speeds.
The report, known as “Mind the Gap – Digital Britain, A Rural Perspective”, highlights the fact that a third of Britons working from home all live in rural areas.
The government encourages working from home as it cuts down on road congestion and therefore helps with global warming. However, unless broadband speed improvements are made, those working from home in rural areas will always be struggling with failing connections and internet based restrictions.
A spokesperson for the CRC also commented on the government’s new broadband tax scheme. They said, “It starts to address the issue but there are lots of unanswered questions and issues about whether it will provide enough funding”.
With many homes far away from local telephone exchanges, people living in rural areas are currently the worst affected by slow broadband speeds. If the government want to improve broadband performance across the UK, they need to address the rural broadband issues as well as the urban ones.
Internet TV’s Will Be Limited Due To Slow Broadband
Viewers experiences of Internet connected TV’s (widget TV’s) will be limited due to the UK’s slow broadband speeds, according to Jim Wallace, the man in charge of Home Segment Marketing at ARM.
Mr Wallace was particularly concerned about the recent Digital Britain report which laid down objectives for every home in the UK to have a minimum broadband connection speed of 2Mbps – which in his eyes was simply not fast enough.
Mr Wallace spoke out after LG hired ARM to power their internet connected televisions.
He said, “I would like more than 2Mbps, as that rate will limit the experience for watching HD content on the web. This type of speed limits what you can actually do. The Arm technology demands as much as possible. The more speed you can get, the better experience you will have. So, something like 10Mbps would be the ideal speed for these TV’s, but the more the merrier”.
There are many people in and outside the industry who believe that the proposed minimum broadband speed limit of 2Mbps made in the Digital Report is too restricting.
However, in a separate news story, an industry expert has hit out at critics, saying that the UK’s broadband sector is not as poor as people are making out.
Stephen Hearnden, the Director of Telecommunications and Technology at Intellect, states that there are good plans already in place to improve the country’s broadband infrastructure, with the UK being one of only two to three countries who offer a minimum speed of 2Mbps.
LSE Says Broadband Snooping Plans Unworkable
Plans made by the UK government to store information on broadband users email accesses and websites visited are ‘unworkable’ in their present state according to the LSE – The London School of Economics and Political Science.
The plans are part of the government’s Interception Modernisation Programme which aims to crack down on terrorism and other criminal acts.
Understanding how terrorists use the internet to communicate with each other is obviously going to be advantageous in the war against terror, however, the government will have to persuade the public that the £2 billion cost over a ten year period is worthwhile – not to mention the personal intrusion.
The Interception Modernisation Programme will store information for up to a year in a database. It will contain information from all broadband internet users, not just suspicious individuals.
Current legislation will be tweaked to allow this, but the LSE claims more laws need to be passed if this will truly work.
The Professor of Information Systems and Innovation Group at LSE, Peter Sommer, said, “The Home Office are right to be concerned about the impact on investigations of the ways in which criminals and others may use the internet. However, they are wrong to think that this can be done by light tinkering with existing legislation”.
Mr Sommer continued, “We are also concerned that the Home Office is characterising its aims as maintaining an interception capability when police powers and capabilities to watch the public have increased significantly over the last 15 years. We need a full debate about the balance between threats to public safety, police powers, the effectiveness of safeguards and cost.”
