Most broadband industry experts and bigwigs are displeased with the budget announcement about financial aid for the Digital Britain broadband roll out.
Charles Trotman, CLA head and industry expert, pointed out a serious flaw in the goal of providing ‘Broadband for All’ until 2012 as the money has to come from the Digital TV switch over, and hence can not be realized before 2012.
While speaking to The Guardian, Trotman said that there was no clarity about the amount and sources of money to be released for the project. He said that though he could gather that the money is coming from lower expenditure in the digital TV switchover, but the exact amount cannot be predicted with any certainty. He hinted that the amount could even be less than £250 million as was projected in the Budget announcement.
Oliver Johnson, CEO of Point Topic, was also unsure and speculative about the details of the investment promised by the government and said that he would wait until Lord Carter’s final report was released to be in a position to understand the situation better. However, he did point out that the amount seemed to be quite less as compared to the money being shelled out by other countries for similar initiatives such as 9 billion dollars by the US and 20 billion Australian dollars by Australia.
Under the Digital Britain initiative, the government has promised to provide every home in
