The U.K. needs new broadband targets, broadband research firm Point Topic founder...
The U.K. needs new broadband targets, broadband research firm Point Topic founder Tim Johnson is scheduled to tell Parliament members Tuesday at a Westminster eForum seminar on “Broadband Britain.” The current goal of having the “best superfast broadband in Europe…
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by 2015” isn’t achievable as stated, and isn’t relevant to the country’s needs, he plans to say. The U.K. needs massive investment to provide homes and businesses with good-quality Internet access and in getting people to use it, rather than “just chasing after speed records,” Johnson plans to say. Instead of trying to be the best in Europe, Britain should judge itself against other major European economies such as France, Germany and Italy, Point Topic said Monday. The country’s broadband infrastructure compares well with the other members of the “Big Four,” but getting ahead of them, especially Germany, by 2015 is a big challenge, the firm said. Government priorities should be to ensure that the over 3 million homes and businesses without broadband of at least 2 Mbps download speed have it, it said. The U.K. should also make sure that broadband services are fit for their purpose and can, for instance, support video streaming or telecommuting properly. The third and biggest gap is social, Point Topic said. More than 7 million homes don’t have fixed-line Internet access, when bringing those families into the Internet community would improve life for them and “spin off a whole range of other economic benefits,” it said.