Stephen Timms Opens His Mind on Universal Broadband

The government aims to see the United Kingdom become one of the most highly skilled, competitive and technologically advanced country in the world, economy-wise. It is the responsibility of the government to see that every citizen is included in this vision as well as to see that it is equally shared across the country. Above given are the views of the current Digital Britain minister Stephen Timms, as given by himself in an article published in the Telegraph.

Timms acknowledges that broadband has become one of the essential service than luxury for the UK people of the late, and it was also improving the country’s commercial, social and economic benefits. The market, according to him, has become more competitive and 99 per cent of the country was enjoying the goodness of the network. However, he also admits that despite many in the country enjoying the benefits of the network, weak services as well as variable broadband speeds apart from the graver fact that many parts of the country were yet to get services, prove to be the spoilsport.

A better broadband for rural Britain has been highlighted by the the broadband fraternity of the United Kingdom unanimously. Under this circumstance it is interesting that Timms has claimed that the government has come up with an agenda of ensuring broadband service to every households and businesses in the country through their Universal Service Commitment. The Universal Broadband plan has been highlighted with a 2Mbps broadband service, which helps the customers to do business at a better pace and learn more effectively. Presently about 2.75 million households that live in remote areas are not able to get this 2Mbps service, which is a demerit according to the minister.

The Digital Britain minister also avers that the government wanted to make it clear that they have taken the 2Mbps broadband rollout in the rural areas the priority work for which they have earmarked a rural broadband rollout fund of GBP 20 million. Tims reveals that the government feels that it is unjust to ignore the rural Britain when urban areas reap the benefits of the broadband revolution. The government plans to set up a small company for designing a model to deliver favorable network at maximum value for its customers, with a view to get the best of the public investment. According to him the best solution was to go in for a fibre connections which is more effective in those areas that are called the cluster broadband notspots.

He claims that the Universal Commitment guarantees that there would not be another problem of digital exclusion as faster broadband networks will be distributed to certain parts of the country. The minister also does not hide his feeling that 2Mbps was not the limit and they were chiefly aiming for a next generation superfast fibre optic broadband network, which would be also be their ultimate goal. Timms has given in the article that he also felt that by the next few years they could rollout a super fast broadband network service to about two thirds of the United Kingdom.

The Digital Britain minister also appreciated the network upgrade works of Virgin Media and the intents of the prominent fixed-line broadband provider in the UK, BT to bring fibre services by 2012 to ten million homes, in the article. According to him, these works performed by smaller networks showed that the United Kingdom was hardly being left behind. Nevertheless, because of the involved high expenditure it was impossible to bring coverage to each rural area without the help of public fund back up and to realise this dream, a positive action was needed from the government, Timms revealed.

Timms also declared that Digital Britain was planning to deliver the next generation broadband service within a decade to nine to ten UK households, and the government was planning to raise the funds by collecting an extra 50p monthly tax on fixed line phone bills. The minister concludes saying that the government also plan to join hands with the community groups to see that the digital divide is bridged.