March 2013
Featured in this insight: Central government & non-department public bodies, IT & telecommunications
Poll highlights public discontent over government delay of fast UK broadband: Market research by ISPreview.co.uk, which polled 782 Internet users across the UK, has revealed a general consensus that the Government is not making good progress when it comes to fulfilling their promise of the national roll-out of superfast broadband services.
Just 7.5% of the respondents thought the Government is making decent strides in delivering fast broadband infrastructure throughout Britain, while 15% viewed their progress as "average" and the majority of over two thirds (71%) voted their efforts so far as "poor".
The aim announced by the Government was to make superfast broadband services available to 90% of Britons and ensure that everybody in the country has Internet download speeds of at least 2Mbps by 2015.
Nevertheless, only 16% of those polled felt that the current Coalition is doing a better job when it comes to fast broadband than the previous Labour government, and 36% said their progress is about the same.
The Government has reported however that their promise has been affected by a number of delays, with the most recent issue being state aid approval from the European Commission. It is a contentious subject, since while the UK blames "stifling EU bureaucracy", the EU says the UK submitted the relevant paperwork late.
Most respondents at 46.9% blame this broadband funding delay on the UK Government, while 26.9% voted as “Don't Know / Other”, 21.3% blame the EU and 4.7% say it is the fault of ISPs.
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