Britain a broadband nation by 2012
March 13, 2009 at 2:46 pm
There has long been concern that the government is not doing enough to provide broadband at reasonable speeds to the whole of the UK. At the same time, other countries are developing much quicker fibre-optic broadband networks, and the disparity is being referred to as the ‘digital divide’.
However, the government has announced new plans to ensure that the entire population of Britain will be receiving broadband at speeds up to 2Mbps by 2012. It is welcome news for the entire country, not least those who have yet to benefit from broadband access.
This new ‘digital network’ was hailed by the Prime Minister, who said that it would be “the backbone of our economy in the years ahead”.
But at the same time as promising access to broadband and higher speeds for all, announcements were also made about cracking down on illegal file sharing, which has become increasingly popular due to the availability of file sharing websites which make it particularly easy to download new movies and music without paying a penny.
The government would not want to see the higher speeds they are promising lead to a boom in the number of people downloading illegally over the Internet, and so the two different programmes are going to go hand in hand. One of the problems with illegal file sharing is that so many people are using other people’s wireless networks, which if not secured can be accessed by anyone within range, making it particularly difficult to convict people for downloading the files.
The ‘Digital Britain’ report aims to highlight the importance that the communications industry has for our economy and will continue to have in the future.
