The Conservatives today claimed they were willing to loosen BT’s grip on the local telephone network and use parts of the BBC licence fee to deliver “superfast” broadband to the majority of Britain’s homes by 2017.Using “market-based solutions” the party believes the UK can be the first leading European country to have speeds of “up to” 100 megabits per second (Mbps), the shadow chancellor George Osborne said. He said “the Conservatives would support changes to the regulatory ­framework”, adding that private investors being allowed to pay for better cabling would encourage competition. If the market failed to deliver, then 3.5% of the licence fee currently used to pay for digital switchover could be diverted to pay for broadband expansion, Osborne said. That would raise between £750m and £1bn on the basis of 25m TV licences.To read this report in The Guardian in full, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/31/conservatives-broadband-bt-bbc-licence-fee