Budget: engineers call for UK to be global leader in next generation communications networks
The Chancellor, George Osborne, has announced up to 600m to improve mobile networks to deliver ultra-fast broadband to all homes.
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has welcomed the news but is calling on the Government to ensure the funding is used to establish the UK as a global telecommunications leader – and introduce legislation to make sure there is a reliable broadband service across all parts of the country.
Professor Will Stewart, IET, says: “High quality mobile access to data is becoming more and more critical to people in both their business and personal lives. Broadband is now our fourth utility, with many of us as dependent on it as we are on water, electricity and gas. The new Government must make providing universal broadband service for the UK a priority. Good broadband access, based on quality of service from a network infrastructure that can respond to users’ needs and not just on data transmission – or bit rate – is crucial to our future economy.
“The UK is already a global leader in e-commerce, and we believe there is a genuine opportunity for it to become a leader in developing and introducing the next generation of mobile and fixed networks too. So we are calling on the Government to introduce legislation and incentives to make this happen.”
