Weiss Report Blog

The government’s promise of a comprehensive 2MB broadband connectivity across Britain still remains a distant dream, with a greater part of the country surfing at speeds that are little better than dial-up connections

The problem is not just with the rural areas. Even some of the urban areas surrounding London are experiencing crawling speeds. It is also quite widespread in areas around other big cities in the UK.

High-speed fiber cables are not far from many of these places, but issues related to ownership of the cable and lack of intent on network expansion have deprived many of the much needed fast broadband connections. Problems with diverting long-distance cables around motorways like the M1 have also been blamed for slow connections.

The present broadband UK scenario is bleaker than initially estimated. Refuting the modest findings of a BT report, a recent BBC News Online study concludes that around 3 million homes in the UK are still waiting for a fast broadband connection. Many of them are left far behind in terms of broadband speed, and others have to make do with speeds no more than 1.5Mb.

Satellite and mobile broadband may ease the situation as the interim Digital Britain report indicated, and as the government has been repeatedly insisting. However, the fact remains that broadband woes continue to create problems for a large section of the British population, with no immediate solution in sight.