Broadband delivery project has failed frustrated internet users ...

Online broadband speed test. The government has postponed its target for rural broadband. Photograph: Alamy

The message had been sitting in the inbox, unopened, for months. But it could no longer be ignored. The coalition at last conceded on Thursday that the taxpayer-funded project to bring decent broadband connections to the countryside won't be finished until 2017, two years behind schedule.

Even if that new deadline is met, bringing a third of Britain out of digital limbo will have taken a painfully long seven years from policy declaration to delivery.

Those close to the government's Broadband Delivery UK body have been warning for months that it was off track. The original deadline of 2015 looked hopeless. Of the 41 contracts due to be awarded by local councils in England, 17 have yet to be signed. Just three are due to complete in 2014. Those signed most recently have a target date of 2016 or later. There are 5m homes that cannot get access to the 2?megabits per second speed considered a minimum for the modern internet.

No access to basic broadband means paying the BBC licence fee without being able to watch the iPlayer or any other video online. It means your children struggle to complete homework. For those running a small business, or working from home, trade is held back by lack of access to technology.

Critics blame a process that was dressed up as an open competition but skewed to ensure only BT could win. Certainly, the firm has scooped up all contracts signed so far. With only one bidder and public buying power dispersed over 41 separate tenders, the ability to ensure value for money is limited.

The Treasury is promising a shakeup. If that is so, the arrival in December on the Tory frontbenches of BT chief executive Ian Livingston, who has a fortune tied up in shares in the former state monopoly, sends a mixed message.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/blog/2013/jun/27/broadband-delivery-project-internet-users

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