Despite the fact that the Conservative party is not even in office, plans for the introduction of a 100 Mb per second broadband capacity within the UK have attracted very different views. Aside from the expected attack by the Labour Party, with suggestions that a potential cost of between £20 billion and £30 billion would be difficult to finance, the idea of using part of the BBC licence fee to fund the new network has received a mixed response.
Originally the Conservative party had promised that any new broadband network in the UK would not require public funding although the party seems to have gone back on its promise by suggesting using some of the BBC licence fee. The truth is that if the UK government, UK consumers and UK business users want the best broadband network available in the UK then they will all need to contribute to the cost.
The longer the introduction of a superfast broadband network is delayed the higher the costs will move and the more desperate it would become. While the UK has made up much ground on overseas competitors regarding broadband speeds and broadband usage in recent years, we need to move to a new level as soon as possible before any future ground is lost.