Statement of intent
There was much speculation after the general election about what its significance to the evolution of broadband in the UK would be. Yesterday we got an initial idea, but not much more.
The new culture secretary - Jeremy Hunt - made his first public speech yesterday. It seems only to have been designed as a statement of intent, rather than anything more substantial, but it offers a sign of how highly this government prioritises getting the UK up to speed on broadband speeds and availability.
He started, of course, with a pop at the previous government: "Singapore wants universal access to superfast broadband by 2012, by which time Korea plans to have provided one million homes with 1 gigabit per second connections - a speed which can download a two hour film in just 12 seconds," said Hunt.
"But in this country, the legacy was - in the same timescale - a commitment to a paltry 2 Mpbs universal connection. Necessary, of course, but pitifully unambitious compared to a Korean goal 500 times faster."
Having said that, he said the government supports the aim of universal 2 Mbps as a minimum. To address the biggest hurdle - the cost of digging up the roads. His solution is to oblige utility companies - not just telcos like BT, which the Tories has threatened to do while in opposition - but things like sewer networks too.
"But I would like to go further," said Hunt. "If legislation is necessary to require other infrastructure providers to open up their assets as well, then - as announced in the Queen's speech - I am ready to bring it to the House as soon as parliamentary time can be found."
But while this may be a new government, some of the old habits have been retained. With no time to spare, Hunt is going to rush out a paper setting out the government's thoughts on this on 15 July. Then he's going to have a bit of a chat with the various interested parties to discuss how they can proceed. No timescale was given for this chat, or specific objectives set.
Hunt's other stated priority concerned local media. "As many people here will know, I have long believed that the lack of high quality local TV is one of the biggest gaps in British broadcasting," he said, before going on to point out that Birmingham, Alabama has eight local TV stations, while our much larger Birmingham doesn't have any.
The main action seems to be a plan to remove all restrictions on local cross-media ownership, thus allowing the same people to own all types of local media and benefit from the resulting economies of scale. Hunt said all the right things about avoiding state subsidy, but the inevitable study into how things can be improved was duly announced.
Here's an edited vid of Hunt's speech.
