Wednesday, December 20th 2017
High-Speed Broadband Internet to Become a Legal Right for UK Citizens by 2020
The Government has confirmed that universal high speed broadband will be delivered by a regulatory Universal Service Obligation (USO), giving everyone in the UK access to speeds of at least 10 Mbps by 2020. This is the speed that Ofcom, the independent regulator, says is needed to meet the requirements of an average family. After careful consideration the government has decided that regulation is the best way of making sure everyone in the UK can get a decent broadband connection of at least 10 Mbps as soon as possible.
Following the creation of new powers when the Government passed the Digital Economy Act 2017, we launched our consultation on the design of the regulatory USO in the summer. The Government will now set out the design for a legal right to high speed broadband in secondary legislation early next year, alongside our detailed response to the consultation.
Ofcom's implementation is expected to take two years from when we lay secondary legislation, meeting the Government's commitment of giving everyone access to high speed broadband by 2020.
In the summer, we received a proposal from BT to deliver universal broadband through a voluntary agreement. We welcomed BT's proposal and have considered this in detail alongside a regulatory approach. We did not feel the proposal was strong enough for us to take the regulatory USO off the table, and have therefore decided not to pursue BT's proposal in favor of providing a legal right to broadband.
The government believes that only a regulatory USO offers sufficient certainty and the legal enforceability that is required to ensure high speed broadband access for the whole of the UK by 2020. However, we welcome BT's continued investment to deliver broadband to all parts of the UK.
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said:
"We know how important broadband is to homes and businesses and we want everyone to benefit from a fast and reliable connection. We are grateful to BT for their proposal but have decided that only a regulatory approach will make high speed broadband a reality for everyone in the UK, regardless of where they live or work."
"This is all part of our work on ensuring that Britain's telecoms infrastructure is fit for the future and will continue to deliver the connectivity that consumers need in the digital age."
This regulatory approach also brings a number of other advantages for the consumer:
Following the creation of new powers when the Government passed the Digital Economy Act 2017, we launched our consultation on the design of the regulatory USO in the summer. The Government will now set out the design for a legal right to high speed broadband in secondary legislation early next year, alongside our detailed response to the consultation.
In the summer, we received a proposal from BT to deliver universal broadband through a voluntary agreement. We welcomed BT's proposal and have considered this in detail alongside a regulatory approach. We did not feel the proposal was strong enough for us to take the regulatory USO off the table, and have therefore decided not to pursue BT's proposal in favor of providing a legal right to broadband.
The government believes that only a regulatory USO offers sufficient certainty and the legal enforceability that is required to ensure high speed broadband access for the whole of the UK by 2020. However, we welcome BT's continued investment to deliver broadband to all parts of the UK.
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said:
"We know how important broadband is to homes and businesses and we want everyone to benefit from a fast and reliable connection. We are grateful to BT for their proposal but have decided that only a regulatory approach will make high speed broadband a reality for everyone in the UK, regardless of where they live or work."
"This is all part of our work on ensuring that Britain's telecoms infrastructure is fit for the future and will continue to deliver the connectivity that consumers need in the digital age."
This regulatory approach also brings a number of other advantages for the consumer:
- the minimum speed of connection can be increased over time as consumers' connectivity requirements evolve;
- it provides for greater enforcement to help ensure households and businesses do get connected
- the scheme will maximize the provision of fixed line connections in the hardest to reach areas.
- places a legal requirement for high speed broadband to be provided to anyone requesting it, subject to a cost threshold (in the same way the universal service right to a landline telephone works)
31 Comments on High-Speed Broadband Internet to Become a Legal Right for UK Citizens by 2020
Basically, you don't even need a separate act for this. Most countries already have some sort of document that specifies a minimal standard for a flat/house: area, height, access to water/sun/air, heating and so on.
At the same time there's also the matter of fast wireless internet coverage. I believe that by early 2020s' whole EU area (excluding mountains above some threshold) will have to be covered by fairly strong 4G signal. Some countries are almost there, but other are far from it.
That EXACT thing happened with Cable TV when it was deregulated about 2 decades ago. Mark this post.
The Obama administration argued that the internet is considered a public utility. And it has become just that.
Its stuff like that makes me very happy to live where I live. Although the danger is looming over here too, with our right-wing oriented governments of late and the overall vulnerability to lobbying.
If there is one thing to thank the EU for, its the resistance and careful thought that goes into legislation and civilian/consumer rights. I really hope we can stick to those principles, because there's a good chance we will be leading in that sense when we look back 10 years from now. A baseline of equality and regulation really is sorely needed to protect mankind from itself and its about time we measure our collective wealth by the baseline we are capable of providing - and the loss of net neutrality is a huge step back in that sense. It has the potential to make us lose everything the internet has brought us.
I'm not a liberal snowflake-commie. The cable company controls my TV and charges me the largest bill in my household second only to my mortgage and taxes. Internet content? No, open it up to everyone, not just the ones that make "them" money, or threaten their monopoly.
And if that was not enough, you are actually thinking the guaranteed Internet access has anything to do with communism.It's 10 Mb/s exactly because it's a minimum. The aim of this law is to guarantee useful Internet access in each home, because today Internet became so important that it can be put among those essential utilities (like electricity, water, heating or waste disposal) a flat/house has to provide. It's not meant to guarantee you comfortable Internet.
And BTW: I'm pretty sure a lot of people in US would still love a stable, unlimited 10 Mb/s. Remember this is a huge and largely deserted / uninhabited country.Which in fact means that negative rights are mostly stemming from natural rights or personal freedom. So there is no need to create legal acts that confirm them.
Positive rights, on the other hand, are exactly what matters and what has to be - carefully - analyzed and written down.
So if you sometimes have a feeling that almost every legal act politicians create / vote is about positive rights, you're right. That's the way it should be.An ideal free market for cable media (both Internet and TV) is almost impossible and simply creates a mess.
Internet should be regulated and organized. For example: the cables should be laid by a single company and ISP should connect through them - not create their own physical network (just like with electricity, water and gas connections).
And it will look like that few decades from now - also thanks to legal acts like the one we discuss here.
** Saying this after a mass cleanup if it confuses anyone. :)
If these type of discussions are unworthy of TPU forum, why not moderate the news first? You know... stick to CPU benchmarks and mining hashrates for new GPUs.
And at the same time there is so much rubbish in large topics - the ones that people might actually want to go back to and search for information.
I'd take 10mbps with <100ms latency at the same price in a heartbeat.
Lolwut
Please go ask the capitalist US citizens who live in less populated areas how their internet worked out for them...
And once again: this is the minimal speed offered. ISP can, and naturally will, offer a lot more.