“We must create a national superfast broadband network”

“Britain is trailing the world in digital infrastructure,” says Conservative MP David Davis.

Writing in today’s Times, Davis says the UK needs to get up to speed because “broadband is more than a technology, it is a whole modern marketplace”.

According to the Haltemprice & Howden MP, “we must create a national, superfast broadband network that takes fibreoptic cable to every front door in Britain”.

At the moment, two million UK homes cannot get a broadband connection of 2Mbps, which is the minimum required for full internet functionality. 0.2% of UK households have superfast broadband.

The Government plans to re-direct around £530 million from the BBC licence fee to enable BT to invest £5 billion in laying cable, which will reach about 60% of the population (mostly in urban areas).

It is thought the cost of making superfast broadband access available around the UK is in the region of £25 billion.

Davis’ suggests using the 2.4 million unemployed people in the UK to build the infrastructure required to enable universal superfast broadband access, supporting David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’. He also calls on the UK to match Korea’s one-gigabit standard to ensure the digital foundations are in place for the future.