The House of Lords Digital Skills Committee published today a report entitled “Make or Break: the UK’s Digital Future”. It outlines the digital revolution that is taking place and states that the UK is at risk of being left behind. The Committee calls on the next Government to take a more ambitious approach in the development and delivery of digital policies.
The final 5% challenge – 7 pilot schemes deployed to bring superfast broadband to UK’s hardest-to-reach areas
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport today published their initial findings from the feasibility phase of 8 test pilots that were set up to explore alternative technologies and business cases to deploy superfast broadband to the hardest-to-reach areas. 7 of those pilots are now being taken forward to deployment.
Performance of the UK in the EU broadband market remains high Ofcom reports
Ofcom released today an update to its European Broadband Scoreboard published in December 2014. The report benchmarks the UK’s performance on fixed and mobile broadband against other EU countries.
BSG Comment: Broadband and ‘universal’ access.
Recent weeks have seen a lot of debate in Whitehall and Westminster around what should be the minimum download/upload speeds that premises and households can access. This raises a number of important questions as to what exactly we mean when we say that broadband is ‘essential’, ‘the fourth utility’ or even ‘a fundamental right’.
EFRA Committee calls for Government to prioritise rural areas in the broadband roll-out programme
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee today published a report into the extent of broadband coverage in rural areas and the launch of digital only services, in which it called for the “hardest-to-reach” areas to be given priority in the delivery of broadband services.
