At the various events that have gone on since the Digital Britain report was created, the consensus from industry and politicians seems to be that 2Mbps is adequate for current broadband needs and will still be so in 2012. A survey that is covered on propertytalk Live! might make a few people sit up and take notice, more so as it comes from people looking at changing properties, and not a broadband specific site where you would expect to see a 'more speed is what we want' type answer.
It seems three quarters of people would not buy a property if the best speed it could achieve was 1Mbps and people would be happy to compromise on a property to get the broadband speed they desire. In terms of the speeds people said they would require, 61.7% required more than 4Mbps, 20.8% 4Mbps exactly, 10.8 requiring 2Mbps and a paltry 6.6% settling for 1Mbps.
So while 2Mbps is going to be functional in 2012, as in you would be able to pay your bills online and interact with government departments, it seems clear that many people are finding things to do with broadband that benefit from higher speeds and may well be making conscious decisions to move to areas where these speeds are available. A distinct danger is that as a good chunk of the country gets higher speeds and often lower prices, the smaller villages or people living on the edge of large towns will be left behind, reliant on a Universal Service Commitment that might be as much use in four years time as the current USC of 28Kbps is now.
The glib answer for people who need faster broadband is they should move, but there are many now unable to afford the costs of moving, or need to live in a certain area due to work commitments. Of course many other services do not have total coverage across the UK. The difference with broadband is that it is moving forward so fast that unless schemes designed to improve coverage or speed actually happen quickly, they will be out of date once they go live.
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4 months ago
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I agree 2Meg is not enough. Those of us near City Airport with only around 1Meg would say that London of all places should have a good service of at least 8Meg.