MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group
IT HAS been the turn of the latest Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to present yet another set of plans for better broadband connectivity across the UK. Same challenges, same opportunities but a new face and voice delivering a new plan.
The importance of access to fast and reliable internet services has been well set out and appear to be well understood.
It gives people new opportunities to create economic growth through business development or to challenge the threats posed to communities at risk of being cut off from society.
The latest minister to take up this portfolio is Jeremy Hunt, who says the Government has earmarked £830m for the scheme, with some of this money coming from funds given to the BBC to pay for the switch to digital TV. Mr Hunt says the strategy will be central to economic growth and the delivery of future public services dependent on quick, reliable access to the internet.
Feeling sympathy for people in his position remains some way off being a national sport.
However, he and his team of civil servants and other advisors have spent time since taking office reviewing what they inherited from the last Government and forming their view of what to do next.
Our last Government pledged broadband access at two megabits per second for all by 2012.
Mr Hunt has scrapped that plan. Instead, the coalition has promised the best broadband network in Europe by 2015 and, crucially, every community in the UK will have access to a fibre optic cable highway by then, too.
Explaining why the Government had abandoned the plans of the former administration that promised the high-speed broadband for all by 2012, he said: “It’s silly to hang your hat on a speed like two meg when the game is changing the whole time.” What the coalition has pledged to do now is to pull together the two key strands of now discarded policy – universal access and high-speed networks.
It remains an ambitious plan.
And its successful delivery remains just as critical for the UK’s economic and social welfare.
It is, though, as Mr Hunt himself says, a game that’s changing all the time.Š
Best keep your eye on the ball, minister.
