TalkTalk exec says digital inclusion comes before rural speeds

Friday, October 22nd 2010

Policymakers have been urged to spend public money on bringing broadband to more UK residents.

TalkTalk exec says digital inclusion comes before rural speeds

TalkTalk's strategy and regulation chief has argued public money should be spent on universal broadband, rather than increasing speeds in rural areas.

Andrew Heaney noted that many campaigners are lobbying for these funds to be spent on subsidising the rollout of fibre optic broadband in more remote parts of the UK.

However, he claimed this would be the "wrong focus" in the current economic climate and said the money should be spent on helping the estimated ten million Brits who have never used the internet to get online.

Supporting this stance, Mr Heaney stated that only between ten and 20 per cent of rural homes would be likely to sign up for super-fast broadband if it became available in their area.

"The smart money should go on digital inclusion," the broadband bundle provider's representative commented.

In his Spending Review earlier this week, chancellor George Osborne revealed £530 million will be committed to bringing fibre optic broadband to rural parts of the country.

Herefordshire and Cumbria will be two of the regions to be included in a pilot scheme, he added.

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Comments (2)

26th October 2010

Cyberdoyle, it sounds like you have never met any of those who are not online. Talk Talk will be able to migrate to fibre I am sure, in a similar model to current LLU, if BT roll it out. The reasons there are still lots of people not online has nothing to do with speeds for the vast, vast majority (while fast speeds and more importantly bandwidth enabling accress to services like iplayer will be something of a hook to interest a few of them, they need much more than that). The vast majority of people not online would probably be happy with speeds even as slow as dial-up if needs be, for the uses that will most benefit them. They need support, a leg up if you will, be it from simplified OSs which still seems a startlingly overlooked area with huge potential, and/or actual human contact and reassurance. Superfast broadband is an irrelevance to them - a fact which seems often lost at Digital Inclusion conferences where a bunch of tech-heads are salivating at next-gen prospects without considering those who aren't even able to access current-gen or previos-gen benefits. Not everyone wants or needs to be able to play Counter-strike with zero lag!

23rd October 2010

We wouldn't need money spending on digital inclusion if we had a decent infrastructure. People would just use IT if it worked. It doesn't work if you live further than 3km from an exchange or 300metres from a cabinet. I don't blame Andrew for trying to protect the copper cabal. Once rural areas have Next Generation broadband through fibre the towns and cities will want it too, and Talk Talk revenue is dependent on the obsolete copper phone lines. I guess many will be sweating. The assets. Time to move on and get this country digital. And that means fibre to the home, not the old business model of a monopoly throttling the digital economy and bleating about inclusion on their way to bank profits made from the scarcity model that stops digital inclusion. chris