High-speed broadband to become a legal right

The government today confirmed its approach towards delivering high speed broadband across the UK. A Universal Service Obligation will ensure that everyone in the UK will be able to access speeds of at least 10Mbps by 2020.

The government has eschewed the voluntary proposal put forward by BT this summer in favour of a regulatory regime that will provide for a legal right to broadband that will work in the same way as the universal service right to a landline telephone works.

Following the creation of new powers granted by the Digital Economy Act 2017 the government will use secondary legislation in early 2018 that will set out the design for this legal right with Ofcom then having two years for implementation.

The BSG looks forward to contributing to the detailed design work that this regulatory approach will ultimately require.