Superfast broadband Hunting

Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt has detailed how the government will makeBroadband Britain work, with his plan centring on schemes to have "a fibre point in every community in the UK by the end of the Parliament" or 2015.

In a surprise move, the government seems to have combined the idea of universal Internet access and a superfast network into one all-encompassing project.

"A superfast network will be the foundation for a new economic dynamism, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and adding billions to our GDP," said the Minister. "But it is not just about the economy; around the world, there are countless examples of superfast broadband helping to build a fairer and more prosperous society, and to transform the relationship between Government and citizens. And shifting Government services online will save billions of pounds of taxpayers' money."

Hunt earlier told the BBC the network would benefit not just business but allow other improvements like telemedicine, social and other public services too - and create as many as 600,000 new jobs.

An extra £50 million is to help drive a second wave of market tests for broadband from May 2011 - local groups have until April to propose new tests.

In all, the shift will cost around £1.7 billion, with BT apparently willing to match a government commitment of £830 million, after which outlay 85 to 90% of the UK should have access to a ‘Net at speeds of 24 Megabits per second (Mbps) - above the 2Mbps target by 2012 that Labour had set. BT will spend that contingent on it winning the right to have first dibs on the local network connection, it seems.

Government's share will include, as often flagged, funds from what the last government had set aside to support the TV digital switchover.

At the local level there will be a number of trials of how to link rural towns over the next two years, along the lines of the Ipswich 1 Giga-bit project announced last week. Local government will have a key role as it will need to work with communities and suppliers to work out how to build the local digital hub.

Meanwhile the private sector - led by BT - will deliver it to the majority of the UK while mainly rural areas will get public funds to build a "digital hub" linked by a faster fibre optic Internet connection. The split will be about 70:30, says Hunt's office.

Critics have already lambasted a lack of commitment to a minimum standard, to which the government is saying that "in order to determine what constitutes 'the best' network in Europe, we will adopt a scorecard which will focus on four headline indicators: speed, coverage, price and choice" so will be based on "a number of composite measures rather than a single factor such as headline download speed".