Public Sector Led Community Broadband Networks Are Taking Up Quickly In UK

LOCAL INITIATIVES ON NEXT GENERATION ACCESS IN THE UK

Published January 20th 2009

In September 2008, the Communications Consumer Panel – previously known as the Ofcom Consumer Panel - issued a position paper entitled *"What is the value of next generation broadband?"* In that paper, they stated: "Any large-scale investment programme by the private sector at this stage will be predicated on a roll-out to significantly less than 100% of UK homes. They believe that the question of how to deliver next generation broadband to homes likely to be outside such private sector investment plans cannot be left until some indeterminate point in the future; instead we must debate the issues now - and so avoid the possibility of creating a second physical digital-divide. CCP wants to encourage exploration of public sector and other non-private interventions even at this very early stage, alongside commercial developments."

In this note, the Consumer Panel has collated information on the range of local initiatives now taking place in the provision of next generation access (NGA) networks in order to indicate to interested parties just how many such schemes – almost 40 - there are and how they can contribute to the national debate on the roll-out of NGA.

Source: Communications Consumer Panel UK