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The new UK broadband team will include a network of dedicated regional broadband advisors co-ordinated by the Department of Trade and Industry, and is charged with increasing both availability and take-up of broadband in the regions. It will be flanked by an additional team of procurement experts from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) which will provide support and advice to enable 'smarter public sector buying of broadband,' according to the e-Minister.
Speaking at the recent 'Broadband Britain' conference in London, Mr Timms said: "There are still too many people, especially in rural areas, who cannot access affordable broadband. The new broadband unit and its network of advisors will use the public sector's spending power to boost availability and take-up in these unconnected areas.
"It will bring together work focused on public sector procurement with work focused on increasing availability within the private sector, consequently stimulating further economic development across the country."
Mr Timms said Britain's progress over broadband roll-out had so far been good and that the new proposals would serve to increase momentum of consumer and business take-up of the service.
The announcement of the broadband team follows BT's recent refusal to upgrade rural exchanges to provide broadband unless enough customers pre-order the service.
Simon Faulkner, an IT contractor living in the wilds of the Staffordshire moorlands, currently relies on a slower, fixed-line alternative to 'broadband,' to communicate efficiently with his clients. He has strongly campaigned against what he calls a 'trickle' roll-out of the service to rural areas such as his own, which obliges him to use BT NetStart at a cost of £3,000- £5,000 a year, in the meantime. ADSL broadband, which offers a higher connection speed, would cost Mr Faulkner under £400 per year if BT would activate it in his area.
Mr Faulkner said: "I am delighted to see the Government and also BT reiterating their support for broadband Britain but also disappointed to note a total lack of any concrete plans for rollout.
"My principal concern is that ADSL in its current form is unlikely to provide the broadband answer for rural areas because it will not work over long or poor quality connections which rural areas such as the Staffordshire Moorlands have in abundance. BT is making a lot of noise about its new satellite offering which for some people is ideal and competitively priced
but it does not suit all types of remote working for IT contractors. Where people need to communicate with their company LAN using tools like 'Citrix,' 'Windows Terminal Services,' 'VNC,' 'X,' 'Telnet' and 'PC Anywhere,' et al, the inevitable satellite delay caused by the finite speed of light and the long round trip results in a 'ping' time of 750+ ms. Such a slow ping time means that remote applications are sluggish and difficult to use which means that most folks cannot take advantage of remote working.
"My proposal would be to launch a modified 'BT NetStart' service which connects a customer's house to an ISP's BT Central Layer 2 tunnel. The ISP would then provide services in just the same way that they do for ADSL. If this was priced at around twice the price of ADSL it would be a fair service for those who cannot get it due to their geographical location."
BT was unavailable for comment.
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Richard Powell, © Shout99.com 2002
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