Rural services to 'request broadband' under new USO
Rural services that do not currently have will fast internet connections will have to request broadband services, it has been confirmed by the government.
Under the Universal Service Obligation (USO), announced last year, rural areas who do not have access to superfast speeds will have to request it under the new service. This could lead to a waiting list of up to four years for homes and businesses to get access to broadband.
How this process will be funded and who will pay for it also remains unclear, but it could be a similar process to the way the current legal obligation for telephone services works. Under such a scheme, any costs up to £3,400 are funded by the ISP, with anything beyond this figure funded by the homeowner or business owner.
In the consultation document on the USO, the government stated: “Given the high costs of providing broadband access to premises in remote areas, it is right that this is done on request, rather than rolling it out and waiting to see if people in those areas want to be connected.
"We know from the various interventions that the government has made to date that it is unlikely that everyone will want to be connected, even if that option is made available to them, and so we do not believe that an additional broadband rollout programme at this time is proportionate or would represent value for money."
The new USO was announced in November 2015 by the Prime Minister, who stated that it was the government's intention to provide broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps to everyone. However, under the current USO, the government is aiming to deliver broadband to up to 95 per cent of the UK by December 2017. This would leave five per cent of the population facing lengthy waiting times and potentially having to request access to broadband themselves.
The government has said it hopes to have the USO in place "by the end of this Parliament" in 2020, adding that it was working to make it happen "as soon as possible".
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(Image: Kings Sutton)
