Rural broadband funding ready for England and Scotland

bealtine

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14539380

Rural areas in England and Scotland have been allocated £363m to improve their broadband connections.

The government money is part of its drive to ensure 90% of homes and businesses not served by the market will have super-fast broadband by 2015.

Local authorities and residents can decide how the money should be spent.

Wales and Northern Ireland have already been given their share of the £530m broadband fund which was set aside from the TV licence fee.

English counties will get £294m and Scotland £68.8m to help the estimated one-third of households which are not expected to have super-fast broadband made available by the private sector.

County councils and private enterprise partnerships will be put in charge of broadband rollouts in their areas, and will be required to draw up delivery plans and find additional funding from elsewhere.

Cumbria, where 96% of homes have a slow connection speed, will get £17 million, while Greater London, where the private market is expected do the job, will receive no government funds.

It will be up to the Scottish government how to use the money in Scotland.

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said the grants - which are about £70 per household - would not be enough on their own, but the government says local authorities and businesses need to work together to fill in the funding gap.

He added that the target of the best super-fast broadband in Europe by 2015 "looked very challenging".

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "Fast broadband is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to delivering public services effectively, and to conducting our everyday lives.

"But some areas of the UK are missing out, with many rural and hard-to-reach communities suffering painfully slow internet connections or no coverage at all.

"We are not prepared to let some parts of our country get left behind in the digital age."

watty

Also more for N.I. too, possibly but not for ages.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/16/gov_broadband_roll_out_remains_a_challenge/

Hunt's department announced today that it had allocated £294.8m to 45 English counties (7-page PDF/154KB) and a further £68.8m to Scotland.

The funds were divvied up from the £530m pot that was created by the Coalition last year to help reach the final one-third of homes and businesses (around 9 million premises) over the four countries in Blighty – areas where telco giant BT could not find a compelling business case to invest in upgrading infrastructure.

Hunt has always been clear that £530m wouldn't be enough cash to pump into all the rural areas still crying out for broadband coverage in the UK, however. His department has previously said that it was seeking a further £300m from government in order to reach remote areas of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

But the extra £300m needed to make Hunt's plans a reality won't happen in this Parliament.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it "will be available by 2017 as part of the TV licence fee settlement".

bealtine

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14539380

Rural areas in England and Scotland have been allocated nearly £363m to improve their broadband connections.

Cumbria gets one of the largest shares of the £530m pot, with over £17m to cope with its 96.2% of homes eligible for subsidies.

By contrast, London gets nothing as it assumed that private investment will cover all parts of the capital.

It is a change of strategy for the government which originally asked counties to bid for money.

Local authorities and residents will decide how the money should be spent.

County councils and private enterprise partnerships will be put in charge of broadband rollouts in their areas, and will be required to draw up delivery plans and find additional funding from elsewhere.

It will be up to the Scottish government how to use the money in Scotland.

Wales and Northern Ireland have already been given their share of the £530m broadband fund which was set aside from the TV licence fee.

The government hopes that by allocating money instead it will speed up the process.

It has pledged to make the UK the best place in Europe for broadband by 2015.

Up to one third of UK homes will not get fast broadband services from the big commercial players without government subsidy.

This is because the number of people living in rural areas versus the cost of creating a next-generation broadband do not represent a good return on their investment for players such as BT and Virgin Media.

So for example Northumberland has 71% of premises that will not be reached by commercial projects. It has been allocated over £7m.

Berkshire, with only 8% of homes unlikely to get next-generation services via commercial firms, gets £1.4m.

But some have questioned whether the £530m will be enough to fill in the gaps.

Malcolm Corbett heads up the Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA), which aims to co-ordinate community broadband projects around the UK.

He lives in Suffolk, which has been allocated £11.6m.

"That equates to around £70 per house or business while the cost of fibre is £1,000 per premises so there is a disparity between what the government is putting in and what it will actually cost to provide a future-proofed solution," he said.

He welcomed the new urgency from government.

"There had been pressure from MPs who were saying not much was happening and that, in part, is why they changed the process from councils bidding for money to allocating it. I think that makes a lot of sense," he said.

The Countryside Alliance welcomed the investment but doubted whether it would be enough to propel the UK to the top of the broadband league tables.

"Today's announcement will only ensure 90 per cent of our homes and businesses will have access to superfast broadband by 2015.

"In other European countries, such as Denmark, they only have 1% of homes outside the reach of ADSL, WiMAX or fibre-optic broadband coverage," it said in a statement.