The broader signposts
The broader signposts already indicate the destination. In its ambitious new digital agenda announced on 20 September cable duct, the European Commission sought to provide standardised definitions of the services to be provided. Although there is no definition of how fast “basic broadband” should be, 2013 is the target date for universal availability throughout the EU, and the commission wants all EU households to have access to at least 30Mbps, and half or cable trunking more to have access 100Mbps and above by 2020.
Hunt might have extended the boundaries of this competitive ambition still further. The day before the EC announcement, the secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Hamadoun Touré, told the United Nations to wiring duct consider the availability of high speed networks as nothing less than a basic human right, and challenged them to ensure that half of all the world’s people had access to broadband by 2015.
