UK Broadband, the countryside and HRH Prince of Wales

News
October 10, 2009

The UK Broadband debate continues and HRH the Prince of Wales says his piece.

TS_Broadband Following my last post regarding how broadband in the UK is falling behind the rest of the world, the Prince of Wales has spoken about his disappointment about the countryside being ‘in the broadband slow lane’.

His Royal Highness was saying that villages were becoming ghost towns because of the lack of broadband (I’m sure he means that this is just another factor which is making people flock to the cities and forgetting their country routes – such as higher pay).

He gives the example that farmers, doctors surgeries and local authorities are suffering because of the lack of a decent speed. Yet in a previous piece I wrote Japan and South Korea are looking at gigabyte broadband where as we’re only looking at 100 megabit broadband – another example of where Britain is in the slow lane of digital development themselves.

One bit of good news is that British Telecom (BT) who manage and maintain the telecoms infrastructure around the UK has reevaluated the costing of giving FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises – 100 megabit) and FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet – 40 megabit) and believes that they can give 2.5 million homes (existing builds) such speeds by 2012. Ironically, the same year as the London Olympics – I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

BT are also saying that it is no longer just new builds that will be able to get the new speed. They will now be giving it to the masses. Perhaps the conspiracy theorists will be saying that the new speeds for new builds was a political stance to promote house sales.

TargetStone – UK Broadband isn’t up to scratch