The communications minister has revealed that '25 to 30 percent' of the UK will not have access to super-fast, fixed-line broadband.
Many people in Britain may miss out on next-generation, fixed-line broadband because there is "no economic case" for building a network in their area, the communications minister has said.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Stephen Carter said that some parts of the UK will not see investment in fixed-line infrastructure. Lord Carter said that there will "certainly be 25 to 30 percent of the country where there will be no economic case for building a next generation fixed network".
The government pledged to provide universal broadband access for the whole of the UK in its Digital Britain report. Lord Carter suggested that those areas which could not be linked up using fixed-line technology may need to use satellite or mobile broadband.
However, these technologies currently lag behind fixed-line in terms of speed and reliance, according to some commentators. In addition, the speed promised by the Digital Britain report - 2Mbps - has been labelled by some in the telecommunications industry as too slow.
The speed is less than the average which telecoms watchdog Ofcom claims UK consumers receive. Ofcom released research earlier in the year which set the average at 3.6Mbps, although even this is lower than the "maximum possible speed" of 4.3Mbps.
