High-Speed to be Legal Right
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British homes and businesses will have a legal right to high-speed internet by 2020, the government has announced.
They dismissed calls from BT that it should be voluntary rather than a legal obligation. The department for Digital, Culture, Media and Spot said only a universal service obligation (USO) would see that the whole of the UK would get at least 10Mbps by 2020.
Broadband providers would now have a legal requirement to provide high-speed internet to anyone who requests it, more matter where they are in the country. BT said it would pledge to voluntarily close the gap in speeds between cities and rural areas, with work starting immediately. It did argue however that secondary legislation could slow it down.
The department did go on to say it did ‘not feel the proposal was strong enough for us to take the regulatory USO off the table, and have therefore decided not to pursue BT’s proposal, in favour of providing a legal right to broadband.’
Earlier in the month, we reported that a large portion of the country wasn’t getting a broadband speed fast enough to fit their needs. Ofcom reported that over one million homes struggle with poor internet.
Digital minister Matt Hancock said that the rollout would not mean high-speed broadband was automatically delivered to every property.
‘It’s about having the right to demand it. It’s an on-demand programme. If you don’t go on the internet and aren’t interested, then you won’t phone up and demand this.’
He admitted that the UK still lagged many parts of the world in terms of internet speed. In Japan, 97% of connections have full fibre lines, compared with the 3% in the UK.
Boy, it would be nice to watch Netflix while I download something.