Skip a broadband generation
A recent UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) consumer panel report calls for communities excluded from current broadband to leapfrog to fast next generation connections.
The Ofcom consumer panel has called on policy-makers to tackle the digital divide by thinking about how to give consumers, excluded from first generation broadband, the potential to leapfrog straight to next generation access (NGA).
Anna Bradley, consumer panel chair, said: “We already know that the economic case for next generation access will not stack up in some areas and we can predict which areas that will be. So let’s address these issues alongside commercial roll-out, not after it.”
Next generation broadband will give speeds of up to 100Mbps, and deliver new services and products across the UK that will bring huge benefits to consumers and citizens.
Recommendations
The consumer panel sets out a number of recommendations for helping to ensure that all consumers benefit and without deepening the existing digital divide .
The Consumer Panel recommends a mapping to show the likely geographic patterns of exclusion that could follow from different roll-out models, and work to identify the costs and benefits of tacking the issues that are identified.
“If we are imaginative and use a mix of private and public business models, we could provide a way for consumers who are excluded from first generation broadband to leapfrog straight to the next generation,” Bradley said.
The consumer panel believes that the delivery of public services has the potential to change radically in a next generation broadband world. The Panel would like to see policy-makers looking at the potential for savings by using fast broadband to deliver to those who are otherwise difficult to reach.
“The UK is making some critical decisions about the delivery of next generation broadband in the UK. Consumers and citizens stand to gain a great deal, but the decisions need to be informed by a proper sense of the value next generation networks can deliver, not just to companies and consumers, but to the economy and society as a whole," Bradley said.
SA needs to catch up
In South Africa a bandwidth shortage means that consumers are unlikely to see next generation access anytime soon.
The fastest current broadband service in SA is provided by Telkom through a standard ADSL platform, two generations (ADSL2+ and fibre) behind world-leading countries like Japan and South Korea.
While local wireless offerings – especially in the mobile space – are keeping up with international trends, true world class broadband capable of triple play offerings are typically ADSL2+ or fibre-to-the-premise (FTTX) services.
Such high speed last mile access services will however put tremendous strain on South Africa’s local and international telecoms infrastructure – something that should be alleviated partly with the landing of Seacom in June 2009.
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