Jeremy Hunt hits back at broadband rollout critics

22.08.2012
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has hit back at criticism he received from the House of Lords over his rollout plans for superfast broadband in the UK.

the government had focused too much on speed, and should rather allocate its resources towards getting everyone in the UK connected to broadband. However, Hunt said this week that the government's ambition is now to have not only the best broadband network in Europe by 2015, but for it to specifically be the 'fastest'.

"[When] the Lords Committee criticised me this summer for being preoccupied with speed, I plead guilty. And so should we all. Because we simply will not have a competitive broadband network unless we recognise the massive growth in demand for higher and higher speeds," said Hunt.

"But where their Lordships are wrong is to say my focus is on any particular speed: today's superfast is tomorrow's superslow. Just as the last government was wrong to hang its hat on 2Mbps speeds, we must never fall into the trap of saying any speed is 'enough'."

Hunt highlighted that the average speed in the UK has increased by about 50 percent since May 2010 and in the last year the average speed increased from 7.6Mbps to 9Mbps, overtaking France and Germany.

He also reiterated the government's plans to rollout ultrafast broadband to 10 cities in the UK, which is coming out of a £150 million urban broadband fund and will deliver speeds of 80 to 100Mbps.