Rural lobby group calls for broadband universal service obligation
Rural lobby group calls for broadband universal service obligation
A lobby group acting on behalf of rural communities and businesses, is calling for the introduction of a universal service obligation (USO) for the delivery of broadband in the UK.
The request is a response to the fact that many find their broadband services to be slower than advertised or insufficient in rural areas, while others have no broadband connection available at all. The government is likely to miss its goal of providing broadband for all by 2015 without such a USO, according to the lobby group.
The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) issued the paper claiming that “It is unlikely that the Government’s objective for Britain to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 will be realised.” The paper, written by the CLA’s president, Harry Cotterell, continued: “So, we are calling on the Government to step up and agree to a Universal Service Obligation rather than just a Commitment.
The CLA goes on to attribute much of the blame for the country’s insufficient rural broadband to the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) initiative, which it claims took a bureaucratic approach to providing broadband. This, it claims, reduced the number of bidders to just two. The paper added, “Indeed, all of the contracts awarded so far by local authorities have been won by BT.”
In conclusion, the CLA stated that the government must “create the right conditions” for broadband to become widely available and used, as satellite TV and other technologies are.
Businesses in rural regions have found it very difficult to ensure their internet connections are fast enough when hooking up to broadband and many have opted to invest in leased line internet instead.
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