Superfast broadband gets £363m funding injection

[bassethound]

The government has today announced £363 million of investment that will help fulfil its pledge to bring broadband of at least two megabits per second to every UK home by 2015.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has set aside a total investment pot of £530m for bridging the growing digital divide in Britain between urban and rural communities. The money will be used to connect hard-to-reach areas to the high speed internet network, filling the gaps left by the private sector.

Hunt has now confirmed that the English counties are to receive £294.8 million of the investment fund, while Scotland will receive £68.8 million. The announcement follows yesterday's confirmation of £4.4m being allocated to Northern Ireland for broadband rollout projects.

This investment will go towards meeting the government's pledge to ensure the UK has the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015, including the target of 90% of UK homes and businesses enjoying internet connections of at least 2Mbps.

"Fast broadband is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to delivering public services effectively, and to conducting our everyday lives," said Hunt.

"But some areas of the UK are missing out, with many rural and hard-to-reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections or no coverage at all. We are not prepared to let some parts of our country get left behind in the digital age."

To access the funds, local authorities and the Scottish government will be asked to lead broadband rollout in their areas, drawing up delivery plans and matching the government's investment with their own cash, European funding or private money.

Hunt urged anyone frustrated at having a slow internet connection to "make it clear to your local elected representatives that you expect them to do what is needed to access this investment and to deliver broadband to your community".

MPs expect the private sector to bring high speed broadband to around two-thirds of the UK, with the public money "being used to help take broadband to the remaining one third by making it viable for business to invest".

Virgin Media recently confirmed plans to expand its fibre optic broadband network to around 100,000 more UK households as part of its own rollout plan.

BT intends to invest more than £1.5 billion in reaching around 10 million UK homes with fibre broadband by 2012, while Fujitsu will roll out fibre to 5m homes in rural areas not served by BT.

Ofcom has also ordered BT to make its UK infrastructure, including telegraph poles and ducts, available to other providers so that they can engage in network rollout projects.

Some providers feel that aerial broadband deployment using electricity or telegraph poles is the optimum way to serve rural communities as it cuts the heavy cost of digging up roads to lay cables or infrastructure.