The government of U.K announced that their citizens will have the right to ‘high-speed broadband internet’ which can be exercised from 2020. They also added that they are currently working towards making a minimum speed of 10 Mbps a compulsion for all homes and businesses.
The government of U.K revealed that more than 4% of the homes, which amounts to 1.1 million of the population, do not have access to high-speed internet for streaming data like movies or music. Moreover, they also admitted that U.K as a country lags miles behind internet speed in comparison to many developed nations like Japan who have a 97% fiber line connectivity in comparison to their own 3%. With this move, the government of U.K has taken the deployment of high-speed internet seriously and plan to acquire fiber connectivity. Explaining this decision, Matt Hancock, Digital Minister of U.K stated:
This is the next big drive we have got to do as a country. Our rollout of super-fast has been the fastest among comparable countries. The drive to get the full fibre connections, the future-proof connections, started only a year ago. I’m absolutely determined to see that rolled out.
According to the government of U.K, companies like British Telecom and Openreach have volunteered to be a part of this initiative. Highlighting the interest from the telecom industry, Karen Bradley, Cultural Secretary of U.K commented:
We know how important broadband is to homes and businesses and we want everyone to benefit from a fast and reliable connection. BT and Openreach want to get on with the job of making decent broadband available to everyone in the UK, so we’ll continue to explore the commercial options for bringing faster speeds to those parts of the country which are hardest to reach.