He said: “For the past five years, the United Kingdom has been the largest digital economy in the G20, by percentage of GDP”.
Advertisement
“We want to forge an ultrafast future for Britain and stand ready to help government deliver the broadband speeds necessary for every property to enjoy modern day internet services”, he said.
Gavin Patterson launches new commitments to improving service and coverage.
“I think the debate is still ongoing on what the right number is [for a minimum speed]”. For example, improving the universal service commitment from its current 2Mbits/sec will need to be at least part funded by government, although BT is willing to invest too.
The Scottish Government pledged a further £2.5 million support in 2014 to help bring broadband to remote areas in Scotland, taking the total investment in the Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) programme to £7.5 million and extending the scheme until “at least March 2018”.
“We’re also applying advanced software to the planning for fibre broadband deployments and so we are increasing the volume of FTTP in the United Kingdom “. The connections on offer would be a combination of fibre-to-the-premises technology, as well as new G.fast technology, using existing Fibre-to-the-Cabinet infrastructure.
“BT Labs and the United Kingdom are genuinely leading the way to produce the technology that I am confident will be the bedrock of networks not just here in the United Kingdom , but around the world”.
“We believe fibre broadband should be extended further should the current funding model be continued”.
BT engineers connecting homes in Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire.
A 1Gbps service will be provided for those that want faster speeds.
The rollout of Ultrafast broadband is due to start next year, while BT also announced plans to tackle slow internet speeds in hard-to-reach parts of the country. This should mean speeds of at least 24Mbps. Openreach is introducing a new service called “View My Engineer”, which gives customers text progress updates, their Openreach engineer’s name and mobile number.
A spokesman for Sky said of today’s announcements: “What the British broadband market urgently needs is radical reform, not calculated manoeuvring and caveats to protect BT’s self-interest”. Garner added he’s even willing to entertain the idea of customers being able to access Openreach directly, even though it was a wholesaler, not a retailer. “We will be consulting on this”.
Ofcom’s overarching Strategic Review of Digital Communications is looking at splitting Openreach from BT as one possible future step for the telecoms industry.
The telecoms company has detailed plans to surpass broadband requirements laid out by the government in terms of both speeds and reach, amid calls from its rivals to split off from Openreach, the national broadband network that it owns and operates.
However, Garner said that Openreach would serve the United Kingdom best by remaining within BT.
At the lower end of the broadband speed spectrum, meanwhile, BT has just as much work to do.
Advertisement
“BT is putting up a strong defence”, said Paolo Pescatore, director of multiplay and video at CCS Insight. Its latest pledges will address some of the shortcomings raised by its rivals, notably investment and service quality.
