Broadband coverage is coming to the top of many agendas now with large tracts of Rural Britain as well as many urban areas, still inadequately Broadband enabled. In business, this will become a significant disadvantage and Broadband’s speed and quality is considered essential for all.
Did you know:-
- Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users.
- It took 13 years for TV audiences to grow to 50 million.
- Internet passed this target in less than five years.
- Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months.
- Over 25% of the World’s 6.7 billion population now use the internet.
- Facebook accounts for 6% of all internet traffic.
- 1.4M UK pupils have their own web page.
- 50% of 5–9 year olds have mobile phones – nearly 100% of over 9’s.
- The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the total population of the Planet.
and yet the UK ranks 25th in the World in Broadband internet availability.
If targets for Broadband capacity set by Digital Britain are not significantly increased and achieved, then the UK’s ranking based on planned investment will slip further.
1.25% of properties in Kent cannot receive Broadband at all.
16.25% cannot receive 2Mb and in Kent we have by far the highest number of businesses in the South East who cannot receive 4Mb per second.
138 properties in Kent are covered by 23 exchanges with an estimated cost of £105M for an interim solution and £452M for a permanent solution. It is likely that many of these will not be addressed within five years.
118,500 properties are covered by 83 small exchanges with £670M estimated as the remedial cost required. This gap will probably be impossible to bridge in the foreseeable future.
The strategy is to make unlimited Broadband available to every property in Kent and wireless services accessible in all public areas.
- Private sector investment has to be encouraged and facilitated.
- Investment costs must be reduced.
- More public infrastructure must be provided.
Schemes have been introduced in the past whereby charges have been levied on utility companies trenching in roads. This was to try to encourage some joined up thinking, but all that happened is that all the costs levied were passed on to the consumer. Surely no road should be significantly opened up without the installation of infrastructure in some form where required. Section 106 planning agreements should also address this as a matter of course. The older surfaces on Kent’s roads have been seriously damaged by the cold weather this winter. Some resurfacing will be necessary as well as extensive potholing. The cost could presumably be huge. Why not investigate the introduction of some benefit at the same time? At present we are informed that there is little coordination in digging up roads and as with everything else in life, achievement of objectives requires ambition and a vision to be set. It is interesting to note that construction processes cost 25% more in UK than in France, almost entirely due to over regulation – but that’s another story.
