[LINK] UK to Get 2Mb/s Universal Broadband
Tom Worthington
Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au
Sun Feb 1 22:13:05 AEDT 2009
The UK Government released "Digital Britain: The Interim Report", 29
January 2009:
<http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631.aspx>. The
report sets five objectives for the UK: Upgrading digital networks,
better investment climate for UK digital industries, quality digital
content, universal broadband access, and e-Government.
The headline objective is universal broadband at up to 2Mb/s. This is
much slower than the 12 Mb/s the Australian Government promised to
deliver using FTTN
<http://www.alp.org.au/download/now/a_broadband_future_for_australia.pdf>.
However, the Australian Government is unlikely to be able to deliver
on its promise and the UK figure seems more feasible, as does
delivery by a mix of wireless and wired services. It is likely the
Australian Government will have to water down its promise to
something like the UK proposal within the next few weeks.
The contribution of ICT to a Low Carbon Economy is mentioned in the
report, but not given the prominence it deserves. The emphasis on
digital broadcast technologies, such as DAB seems a little old
fashioned and misplaced (DAB being a very limited one way
pre-Internet technology). The use of a graphic of what appears to be
a USB flash drive seems at odds with the report's emphasis on digital
telecommunications. The report makes an interesting contrast with the
Australian Government's recent Digital Economy Future Directions
Paper
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/01/future-directions-for-australian.html>.
The full UK report is provided in MS-Word as well as PDF. The
individual sections of the report are also in PDF. A plain text
version of the executive summary is in my blog at:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/02/uk-to-get-2mbs-universal-broadband.html>.
Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617 http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
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