Project Canvas, the UK IPTV venture is the key to implementing Digital Britain, Broadband Stakeholder Group chairman Kip Meek has said. While fibre and spectrum are vital to the government plan to achieve 100% broadband coverage by 2012, take-up will be…
Project Canvas, the UK IPTV venture is the key to implementing Digital Britain, Broadband Stakeholder Group chairman Kip Meek has said. While fibre and spectrum are vital to the government plan to achieve 100% broadband coverage by 2012, take-up will be the deciding factor.
Speaking at the Westminster Media Forum’s seminar on Britain’s Digital Future today in London, Meek – who will shortly become the non-executive chairman of Project Canvas – warned that if the wider population does not take up broadband, Digital Britain will fail.
“My hunch is that consumers are most comfortable with two devices, TV and mobile handsets”. “I hope that Canvas can play an important role in” helping people “access and connect to the internet”, he said. If take-up is wide, “it would have a big impact on public spending”, significantly reducing costs. “But it won’t happen without government leadership”, he concluded.
He also argued in favour of an “explicit and coherent” policy on fibre by the new government, which should prioritise coverage over speed. Once government and regulatory policy becomes clear, it will be the private sector companies including BT, Virgin and competitors such as Sky and the mobile operators that “deliver fibre into the UK”.
Lamenting the litigation and delays that have dogged the country’s auction of 2.6MHz superfast broadband, he called for a decision on whether decisions on spectrum are to be government, regulation or consumer led.
