Broadband News

Fibre broadband could create a ‘new digital divide’

Tuesday, 10 June 2008

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

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Concerns were raised yesterday that the UK’s digital divide will be “deepened” rather than “demolished” if the roll-out of next generation broadband is based on economic benefits only.

The Ofcom Consumer Panel, which advises the regulator on consumer issues, warned that if only the economic case for next generation access (NGA) is considered, “we risk deepening the existing digital divide: those who currently have slow, if any, access to the internet will not benefit and the difference between their services and those who benefit from the new NGA will become even more marked”.

"We risk deepening the existing digital divide"

The deployment of fibre to the home and fibre to the curb could deliver download speeds of between 75Mb and 22Mb respectively, and in a joint conference yesterday, the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) predicted that upgrading 80 per cent of the UK to a fibre network would cost £16 billion.

“Beyond this level of coverage costs are likely to rise significantly and commercial rollout is less likely to be feasible in the foreseeable future,” said the BSG.

Antony Walker, CEO of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, said: “Communities and individuals that remain beyond the reach of commercial deployment in the long-term will be disadvantaged. Close attention must therefore be paid to the emergence of a new digital divide.”

Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, recently claimed that the regional digital divide had closed after it revealed that more rural homes had broadband than those in town and cities for the first time. However, these claims were disputed because of the poor speed and reliability of many rural broadband connections.

Anna Bradley, Ofcom Consumer Panel chairwoman, said: “If we are imaginative and utilise a mix of private and public business models, we could ensure the current digital divide is addressed and not deepened; giving those consumers currently excluded from first generation broadband the potential to leapfrog this technology and move straight to next generation.”

Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “It is essential in developing a NGA fibre network that the Government doesn’t turn the digital divide into a chasm between those homes and businesses with super-fast download speeds of 75Mb and those left struggling to pass 3-4Mb on an unreliable copper wire line.

“WiMax - which sends out a strong, wireless signal over a large area - should definitely be considered as a possible solution to this problem,” he advised.

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