The UK Government has announced its funding for the ten ‘Super-connected cities’. Out of the total grant of 114 million Pounds, London is allotted 25 million Pounds for its ultra-fast broadband connections. The biggest benefactor is London with 25m Pounds followed by Belfast with 13.7m Pounds. 14.4m Pounds will be shared between Leeds and Bradford.

This funding is in addition to the 530m Pounds already sanctioned by BDUK for improving the broadband infrastructure in the UK. Each city will decide the details of the project. According to the Government an additional 230,000 households and 55,000 businesses would be provided with ultra fast broadband access by the close of 2015.

The cities will discuss the project with their partners, in most cases with BT, regarding the extension of fibre and enabling of street side cabinets. The aim of the project is to provide broadband services with speeds of 100Mbps or more to residences and businesses.

Market failure concerns
All broadband projects that receive Government aid are required to get approval from Brussels and it is still doubtful whether the broadband backwardness of some areas are due to ‘market failure’. In some cases, private providers are not willing to invest in the broadband infrastructure in certain areas, since they are not economically viable. The term ‘market failure’ denotes such instances and Thinkbroadband.com analysts say that there are disputes over the Government funding in such areas. According to Andrew Ferguson, a network expert, at the end, BT will get majority of these contracts and huge amount of money would be spent in cities by way of subsidizing fibre on demand for businesses. Subsidising a product that has not been introduced in the market, doesn’t amount to ‘market failure’. More over in the UK there are companies like Hyperoptic and Ask4, supplying fibre-to-the –building solutions. However, Mr Ferguson stated that the project would be beneficial for residents who are not considered for th
e first round of Infinity FTTC cabinet upgrades.