NextGen 10 (6): Government policy
26 November 2010
Government policy was put forward (in a video link from BIS) by Communications Minister Ed Vaizey and by Simon Towler, Head of Broadband Policy & Programmes at BIS.
The Government's declared aim is to ensure that the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. So far, there has been no explanation of what is meant by ‘best' or how will be evaluated, but a ‘balanced scorecard' is being developed.
At the heart of the Government's approach is the commitment in the Comprehensive Spending review to £830 million of public money between now and 2017 to support the roll-out of broadband in rural areas. The first £530 million of this will come from the underspend on Digital Switchover. There will then be a further £150 million a year from 2013 through the BBC licence fee settlement.
There will be four trials of the delivery of next generation broadband in rural areas and these trials are being funded through Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).
Government is pushing with Ofcom for a lowering of investment costs in NGA through something called Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA), allowing access by new entrants to the infrastructure of BT and ultimately other organisations such as the electricity and water networks. BT is due to publish reference offers for access to ducts and poles in January & May 2011 respectively.
Another important part of Government policy concerns release of spectrum. Ed Vaizey wants to see the earliest possible release of 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum and believes that we are now on course for this to be auctioned in 2012. In addition, the Government has made a commitment to release 500MHz of spectrum below 5GHZ currently held by the public sector over the next ten years.
Government plans to publish a Broadband Strategy Document in early December 2010 which will provide more detail on policy.