UK upper house attacks broadband plan, claims govt lacks strategy
By Nick Wood, Total Telecom
Tuesday 31 July 12
House of Lords calls for nationwide network of open access fibre hubs to narrow digital divide; analysts sceptical.
The U.K. government's nationwide broadband plan risks excluding underserved communities due to its preoccupation with connection speeds instead of delivering universal access.
This is the conclusion drawn by a six-month inquiry published on Tuesday by the House of Lords Communications Committee, which gathered evidence from a range of stakeholders including network operators BT and Virgin, Internet service providers (ISPs), consumer advocacy groups, regulator Ofcom, and the government.
Essentially, the House of Lords, the U.K. parliament's upper house, recommends that the country would be best served by an open-access fibre network that would allow third-party service providers to build their own access networks using whatever technology they choose…
The U.K. government's nationwide broadband plan risks excluding underserved communities due to its preoccupation with connection speeds instead of delivering universal access.
This is the conclusion drawn by a six-month inquiry published on Tuesday by the House of Lords Communications Committee, which gathered evidence from a range of stakeholders including network operators BT and Virgin, Internet service providers (ISPs), consumer advocacy groups, regulator Ofcom, and the government.
Essentially, the House of Lords, the U.K. parliament's upper house, recommends that the country would be best served by an open-access fibre network that would allow third-party service providers to build their own access networks using whatever technology they choose…
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