Make broadband a public utility, House of Lords recommends

With the General Election just months away, peers in the House of Lords have said that the new government should adopt the mindset that broadband ought to be a utility like water or electricity.

Voters will go to the ballot boxes in May this year and a report from the digital skills committee of the House of Lords has recommended that the internet be ranked alongside water, gas and electricity as something that needs to be available for everyone in the UK. The paper comes in response to continuing concerns around broadband speeds in some areas of the country, known as 'not-spots', where people have access to no or low-speed broadband.

The report, entitled Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future, states: “Digital technology is changing all our lives, work, society and politics. It brings with it huge opportunities for the UK, but also significant risks. This demands an ambitious approach which will secure the UK’s position as a digital leader.”

Chair of the Committee Baroness Morgan adds: “Also, in some parts of the UK, as many as 20 per cent of the population have never used the internet. Only when the Government treats the internet as a utility, as important and vital for people as water or electricity, will these issues be addressed.”

The government has already made notable strides in this respect; the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme has so far connected two million properties to superfast broadband and plans to cover 95 per cent of the population by 2017.

However, the House of Lords is claiming for more needs to be done, particularly in London, which the report highlights as one of the slowest broadband cities in Europe. In fact, England's capital was ranked 26th among European cities for broadband speeds, with internet services three times slower than Paris and Bucharest.

Businesses struggling with the performance of their existing network could consider setting up a leased line or MPLS network for fast, reliable internet speeds.