As the UK government’s hopes of delivering broadband services to every home in the UK at speeds of no less than 2 Mb per second by 2012 continue to struggle, culture minister Andy Burnham has stepped forward with an alternative idea. He believes that one potential route into the more rural areas of the UK is via the forthcoming digital set-top boxes which will be commonplace across the UK when the analogue TV signal is finally switched off.
So far there has been no official comment from the UK government with regards to this alternative but with the five major mobile phone network companies unable to agree a carve up of the airwaves, the use of digital set-top boxes as a means of delivering broadband to the more isolated areas of UK is a distinct possibility.
Satellite broadband is an area of the UK broadband market which has never really taken off despite the fact it has one obvious advantage over the vast majority of broadband networks available at the moment. It is as easy for satellite broadband to be beamed into a home in the city as it is to be beamed into a home in the far-fetched highlands and islands. The same equipment is required and broadband speeds will also be exactly the same.