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Doubts over the Government’s ambitious pledge on gigabit-capable broadband deepened on Tuesday after the minister responsible for its roll-out failed to say how confident he felt about making the 2025 target.
Full-fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business across the UK by 2025 was a key Conservative manifesto pledge in the 2019 general election. It brought the goal forward by eight years.
Nearly five million people have suffered a broadband outage of three hours or more in the last year, according to new research.
A report by comparison service Uswitch.com said the average home had experienced more than a day – 29 hours – offline in total in the last 12 months.
The investment confirms a pledge by the Conservatives at the election to bring full-fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business in Britain within five years. Andrew Glover, chair of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), said the £5 billion promised was “a welcome first step”, but added that the “increased funding alone will not allow the industry to get the job done”. “Broadband rollout is largely privately funded and in order to provide industry with a chance to meet the Government’s 2025 ambition, today’s announcements need to be backed up with further reform on wayleaves, new build legislation, action on street works and further investment into digital and engineering skills,” he said.
TalkTalk has sold its fibre networks rollout business to Cityfibre for £200 million. The deal for Fibrenation was supposed to be completed last year, but was delayed following Labour’s announcement that it planned to nationalise parts of BT if it won the general election.
Openreach is aiming to deliver ultrafast broadband to three million homes and businesses by the end of 2020 It has reached a “milestone” of making the technology available to over one million premises, a year since launching its “full fibre” programme. Engineers have installed around 2.6 million kilometres of fibre, using hundreds of heavy plant machinery-… Read More