UK faces superfast digital divide say network providers

Broadband firms have warned that a new digital divide is emerging.The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that speakers at the Westminster eForum said that around 10 per cent of the United Kingdom would not be able to get superfast broadband in the next decade.Government funds set aside to address so-called notspots were insufficient, they said.BT said that EU targets for all citizens to have speeds of at least 30Mbps (megabits per second) by 2020 were "impossible to achieve".Meanwhile Fujitsu revealed more about its plans to fill in the UKs broadband blackspots.The Japanese electronics giant burst onto the UK broadband scene in April, pledging to offer a fibre-to-the-home network to the third of the country bypassed by commercial broadband roll-outs.Using the 530m pot of government money set aside for rural broadband, it said that it could create a fibre-to-the-home 1Gbps (gigabit per second) network for around five million users within five years.But it has been slow progress. So far Fujitsu has bid to build fibre networks in just three areas - Wales, North Yorkshire and Cumbria.In two areas, including the Highlands and Islands, it decided that the sums simply did not stack up."Even with government funding there are parts of the UK where the business case will not work," Fujitsus business unit director, Bill Mackenzie,saidIt was a view backed by rival BT, which is bidding to provide fibre networks in the same areas.Group director of strategy and policy at BT,Sean Williams, told delegates that current funding would reach 90 per cent of the UK.For those in the 90 per cent the future was bright. He predicted that "over half would have speeds of more than 100 megabits" before 2020.This would put the UK on schedule to meet an EU goal that half of its citizens should have access to at least 100Mbps by that time as well as propelling the UK to the top of the European speed league tables.But the other key EU broadband target - to have all member-state citizens on a minimum speed of 30Mbps by 2020 - was "not achievable for any country", Williams said.
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