Better broadband in SW say Labour
Terry Ledlie, the Labour candidate for the Yeovil constituency says that under Labour’s proposed Broadband nationalisation, 90.50% per cent of households and businesses in South West (1332415 premises) will get a stronger, more reliable internet connection.
He told The Leveller® “the next Labour government will undertake a massive upgrade in the UK’s internet infrastructure, delivering fast, secure, reliable internet connections for everyone and putting an end to patchy and slow coverage. This will boost 5G connectivity across the country.
The roll out will begin with communities that have the worst broadband access, including rural and remote communities and some inner city areas, followed by towns and smaller centres, and then by areas that are currently well-served by superfast or ultrafast broadband.”
Mr Ledlie tells us that the plan will be paid for through Labour’s Green Transformation fund and taxing multinational corporations such as Amazon, Facebook and Google, and save the average person £30.30 a month.
According to Labour, only between 8-10 per cent of premises in the UK are connected to full-fibre broadband, compared to 97 per cent in Japan and 98 per cent in South Korea. Almost 80% of adults surveyed said that they have experienced internet reliability problems in the last year.
We know about this
Here in Somerset we are one of the few parts of the country that has actual experience of this sort of project. Our experience to date with a government controlled broadband project in Somerset (and Devon) has not been good.
The Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project, has now costing around £100m of taxpayers money. It has, ironically been led by Conservative administration sin Devon and Somerset County Councils.
The general perception within County Hall is that it has been a rip roaring success. Unfortunately just about everywhere else, in the business community and the public, it has been fiercely criticised and in general has been less well received.
That is not to say a nationalised project could not work, it has clearly been a great success in South Korea. I suspect voters will need reassurance than any future project will be better run than the CDS one.