AFTER MUCH delay, the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt announced on Tuesday night that superfast broadband plans for Thurrock had been put into motion.
A few weeks ago, the department expressed frustration at a number of areas in the country that were “dragging their heel” over super-fast broadband.
YT’s information comes from the Simon Perry, the editor of the Isle of Wights on-line newspaper, VentnorBlog.
Mr Perry said:
“I was lucky enough to be invited to the annual reception of the All-Party Parliamentary Media Group last night, attended by the Great and the Good of the UK Media scene … and me.
“MP Jeremy Hunt gave a speech – his first in public since his Leveson appearance, I was told – which, in no uncertain terms, spelt out how, in his view, mobile access will be the primary means of access to content in the UK, as well as universal 20Mb+ broadband.
“On the broadband front, which featured large, I think I’m right in saying that he broke the news that the broadband plans both for Essex, Southend-on-sea and Thurrock as well as for Newcastle-upon-Tyne have been signed off by his department that day.”
What??? Thurrock already has super fast Broadband for Virgin Media customers with speeds upto 100Mb as for 20Mb being classed as super fast that is just laughable, the technology to supply over 100Mb to all homes has been around for years however this is all throttled down to allow companies to charge extra for the service.
Lambo, not all of Thurrock has fast broadband never mind superfast. If you are unfortunate to live on the railway station side of Chafford for example you are lucky to get 4Mb.
Still less than 3Mb in Chadwell St Mary.
BT Infinity originally stated it would be available 30th May, then 30th June, but online saying it is ready now, but when you try to apply…….not yet!
In Bulphan we dream of getting 3Mb!
We get 1Mb at the most.
So we welcome this news but whether it will come to pass any time soon is another matter. We can but dream and hope!
Fair play to all those who have responded, however, the technology to enebale fast broadband acros ADSL has been around for decades along with the fibre optic methods as well, a lot of the companies do not want to invest in new infrastructure to allow the fast routing of their broadband.
The UK are still lagging behind other countries who offer free wifi access in towns and fast broadband across their communities.