14 DAY TRIAL // The Internet is increasingly viewed as a necessity rather than an optional luxury and the political landscape is changing to reflect this view. Broadband deployment issues are becoming the topic of political debate in more and more countries and none more so than in the UK, where the issue has been disputed for a couple of years now. There are plans underway to ensure broadband availability to the vast majority of the population by 2012, but now the Conservative opposition in the country is trumping current plans, which talk about a 2 Mbps connection as the minimum, by saying they would put in place a network which would deliver 100 Mbps to the "majority" of homes by 2017.
Shadow chancellor, 'lead economic spokesman' for the opposition for anyone not familiar with UK politics, George Osborne said his party would deliver a much better broadband plan than the current one, which has been criticized for its modest ambitions. "In the 19th Century we built the railways. In the 20th Century we built the motorways," Osborne said, according to the BBC. "In the 21st Century let's build the super-fast broadband network that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Britain."
Those sure sound like fighting words, there's just the problem of who's going to pay for it all. Fortunately, they've got this covered as well, as one possible source for funding would be the public itself which already pays a TV license fee to fund the BBC. A portion of that fee would be set aside for investments in broadband infrastructure.
The other parties, though, aren't as convinced mainly because they believe the plan to be unfeasible economically. Bringing broadband connections to remote rural areas is expensive and unprofitable, which is why the teco's haven't done it by themselves. The UK government published a report last year dubbed Digital Britain outlining plans to bring a fast, reliable Internet connection to all but the most remote households in the country by 2012. The plan is seen as critical to ensure economic growth and competitiveness in a world dependent on the Internet. Other countries have announced similar plans. In the mean time, the UK is looking forward to kicking people off the Internet as well