UK culture, media and sport secretary Jeremy Hunt has laid out departmental commitments including universal 2Mbps by 2015, a smaller Ofcom and ways for smoothing out hurdles to next-generation broadband infrastructure.
Hunt has pegged back the 2Mbps timetable from 2012 because “I am not convinced that there is sufficient funding in place”, he told a broadband industry meeting he convened.
But he has charged that rural pilots, to examine whether public funding is needed to extend superfast network infrastructure, should be up and running by 12 months’ time.
Hunt wants to compel utility companies to lay fibre in their pipes, and that BT (NYSE: BT) must grant competitors access to its fibre in the same way BT Openreach has with copper.
Here are the relevant milestones from Hunt’s structural reform plan…
