UK: Watchdog calls out gov’t broadband failures

The UK’s Public Accounts Committee released a report criticizing the government for failing to introduce competition into the broadband industry through its rural broadband program, according to reports.

The PAC slammed the Broadband Delivery UK plans, implemented for $2 billion, for allowing top broadband company BT to become a monopoly. The delivery program was intended to help more rural areas gain access to broadband services where investment is scarce.

But according to the PAC, the government has allowed more than half of the project’s contracts to be awarded to BT. In its report, the watchdog fond that nearly all of the initial nine broadband suppliers involved in the government scheme have dropped out. BP’s only rival Fujitsu is largely inactive, the group said.

The PAC first raised concerns last September. Now, the PAC’s chairman, Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, is raising those concerns again, announcing that “despite out warnings last September, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has allowed poor cost transparency and the lack of detailed broadband rollout plans to create conditions whereby alternative suppliers may be crowded out.”

The PAC is now calling on the Department to launch an inquiry into the program to solve the issue.

Full Content: The Telegraph

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