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UK Broadband Plan Set To Clear EU Approval

Posted by Unknown on from the faster-bits-for-all dept.

judgecorp writes "The British government's plan to subsidize rural broadband in the UK is about to get approval from the European Union, even though every contract so far has been awarded to BT, according to sources. The Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project has been examined under EU state aid rules, but apparently has passed despite all the money going to one dominant telecom operator"

2 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Important by busyqth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's very important to spread the dosh around, because everywhere else that this has been done, governments have relied on robust competition between scrappy telecoms companies to provide rural broadband service...

    Well except in Korea, where it was all done by Korea Telecom, but then again, they finished their 100 Mbps rollout 5 years ago and are now providing 1000 Mbps service to rural areas, so what do they know about this stuff?

  2. Terrible summary by byornski · · Score: 5, Informative

    The real story here is that the UK govt isnt giving money to communal rural broadband programs. That is what this story is about. BT(wholesale) owns the vast majority of the UK's phone lines and internet access(with the exception of cable where you can get it). The systems in place only seem to acknowledge broadband extension programmes from big companies so as apparently to avoid communities setting up their own broadband networks etc. This is pretty disgraceful (but old) news from the British govt. It was on radio 4 about a month ago...