Comment from Ovum in regards to the government setting the deadline for broadband funding requests to the end of February.
Matthew Howett, Analyst at Ovum, has the following view: –
“Putting in place a timetable to apply for the public funding is a promising step and in many ways provides one of the missing pieces of the jigsaw. It is widely recognised that so far the BDUK process has not delivered as expected and clearly needed to be driven and championed more centrally in government. In that respect today’s announcement is encouraging. Some significant progress has been made this year with respect to ‘fibering’ up the final third – most notably with BT making progress with its duct and pole offer, which will be key if operators are to make their business cases stack up.
“That said, the public funding of broadband in the final third is not without other challenges. Some significant hurdles remain in the form of a fairly sub-optimal procurement process and in absolute terms, the size of the pot is limited. It is going to take some creative thinking and new partnerships if the UK is to meet its ambitious target to have ‘the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015’.”
