BSG Recommendations taken forward in Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) Rural Broad
The Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) have this week published a report following an investigation into rural broadband provision which the BSG gave evidence to a couple of months ago. The report recognises that there is a digital divide between urban and rural areas in terms of broadband availabilty and urges Government to urgently close the divide. It recommends that broadband should be made available to all areas of the UK according to a defined timetable and that the Government needs to allocate adequate resources to support that policy.
It endorses the BSG recommendation to free up spectrum and their report actually recommends “…that the Radiocommunications Agency be formally directed to set the price of radio spectrum licences at a level which actively encourages the development of wireless broadband”. Moreover, it makes reference to the “alphabet soup” of rural initiatives which are currently going on – a point we will make in the forthcoming BSG Rural Report which will be published in December.
