Government frees up more cash for fast broadband

Government frees up more cash for fast broadband

Today’s Budget held more than a few positives for businesses around the country that are worried about their network speeds and broadband connections.

Chancellor George Osborne repeated his commitment to rolling out fast broadband across the nation. He said that ten British cities - Bristol, London, Manchester, Belfast, Leeds, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Birmingham, Bradford and Newcastle - will receive upgrades to their broadband connection to help them become “super-connected".

The cities in question will received part of some £100 million in funding that is being made available for the upgrade, which was first announced in Autumn last year. At the time, the government said that it was hoping to increase speeds to between 80 and 100Mb/s.

In addition, the Chancellor has now revealed that £50 million is also being made available to increase network speeds in smaller cities around the country as part of the scheme.

This improvement to speeds in smaller cities should help more rural regions achieve faster broadband speeds, according to Matt Hawkins of C4L, who spoke to computing.co.uk about the announcement. He welcomed the funding, stating, "It's great to see that the government is also looking to increase broadband investment into smaller cities, which are usually forgotten about when such investments are made.

"When it comes to rural areas in the UK, the trouble is that it's just not profitable enough for most large providers to expand from their established customer base in urban areas to more remote communities,” he added.

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