Universal Service Obligation

In November 2015, the Prime Minister announced the Government’s intention to implement a new broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO). Government wants to give people the right to request an affordable broadband connection, at a minimum speed, from a designated provider, up to a reasonable cost threshold (with everyone accessing minimum speeds of 10Mbps by 2020).

However, this article tells us that Government has now stated in a consultation document on the USO that broadband will not be an automatic right in “hard-to-reach” locations, due to the expense.

“Given the high costs of providing broadband access to premises in remote areas it is right that this is done on request, rather than rolling it out and waiting to see if people in those areas want to be connected…We know from the various interventions that the government has made to date that it is unlikely that everyone will want to be connected, even if that option is made available to them, and so we do not believe that an additional broadband rollout programme at this time is proportionate or would represent value for money.” A range of organisations including the NFU and CLA have warned of an impending crisis in rural areas if the Government does not do more to support the rollout of superfast broadband and improve mobile coverage in rural areas.

The Countryside Alliance has criticised the decision and accused the government of showing a “casually metropolitan sentiment…No special treatment is necessary, just equality.”

As well as the delivery infrastructure put together by Government, there are a plethora of examples across rural England where communities have decided to ‘do it yourself’ – Cybermoor, B4RN and Fibre GarDen. Policy-makers have introduced initiatives and funding pots for several years now: to what extent are these reducing the digital divide between urban (leaders) and rural (laggers)?