Onzo

In January the government announced tentative plans for the upgrading and extension of Britain's digital network, to ensure that by 2012 all homes will enjoy broadband access. The Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, Lord Carter of Barnes, published an interim report, "Digital Britain"", and the final report is expected later this month.

Onzo has long been calling for the establishment of a universal service obligation for broadband and in January we welcomed the fact that this has now become official policy. We expressed concern, however, that much about the plan, not least who is to pay for it, remains unclear. We also suggested that this programme should be seen in the context of the general roll-out of smart meters. These, we argued, could be tied in to broadband to act as hubs for the provision of a wide range of services to the home.

Others have been more critical. The Opposition complained about the number of new consultations and discussion papers proposed by Lord Carter, which it sees as a substitute for actual action. The shadow Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, also criticised the relatively slow intended network speed of 2 megabits per second. "Isn't the scale of the government's ambitions pitifully low"", he said, "simply saying it wants to ensure the whole population has access to half the current average speed".

Of course, the duty of all oppositions is to oppose, and a four-year timetable for universal broadband coverage (the current figure according to Ofcom is 57 per cent) in fact seems fairly ambitious. Nevertheless, we hope Lord Carter's final report will go far to resolve all the outstanding issues and allow the programme to get under way promptly.

The government could do worse than to take a leaf out of the book of its federal Australian counterpart. In Canberra, the establishment of a new company to build within eight years a new super-fast National Broadband Network has just been announced. This network will encompass not only homes, but also schools and work-places. Most of the connections will be by fibre optic cable that will allow speeds of up to 100 megabits a second, while premises that are not suitable for cable connection will enjoy speeds of 12 mbits/s through wireless and satellite technologies.

The Australian government seems to have abandoned consultations on alternative ways to implement universal broadband provision, on the grounds that none but the model it has opted for would offer value for money. With reports suggesting that a decision on how smart meters are to be rolled out here will be announced by the end of the month, we believe that if smart meter and broadband provision is to go hand in hand, similar resolution is now needed in Whitehall.