“Any speed is not enough”, says Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt

Jeremy Hunt, the UK’s Culture Secretary, has expressed that UK will be equipped with the fastest broadband network in Europe by 2015, with government funding of £300 million for the project, in order to achieve a speed greater than 24 Megabits per second (Mbps).

In order to stay updated with others in Europe, higher speeds would be of prime importance. “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”, he said.

The government would initially invest in connecting more homes to the slower Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) as a stopgap arragement in order to increase speeds quicker. Hunt said, “The increase in speeds that it will allow – 80Mbps certainly but in certain cases up to 1Gbps – will create Europe’s biggest and most profitable high-speed broadband market.”

According to Hunt, this would create conditions where the private sector might invest in Fibre To The Home (FTTH), which brings a fibre connection without the need for any slow copper cabling, and by 2016, most of the UK would have access to FTTH.

The Culture Secretary also said that developing faster broadband network is also essential for digital and creative industries, all of whom need reliable high-speed networks to develop and export their products as they move large digital files around the world.