Welsh web worries
The shadow business minister Ian Lucas has blasted the coalition government for apparently overlooking Wales in its fibre broadband plans.
Lucas, who is the MP for Wrexham, is not impressed with the government's failure to specifically allocate any money to homes and businesses in Wales to benefit from super fast broadband, ISP Review reported.
Under current plans, the government has earmarked £530m to spend on making sure everyone can get at least a 2Mbps connection by 2015 and this number could reportedly rise to £830 by 2017 as it aims to roll out next generation solutions across rural communities.
While the numbers sound big, Wales has reportedly not seem much action since the plan was announced (albeit in early December) with only a feeble promise of extending a Herefordshire pilot.
Lucas' comments reportedly come shortly after the Welsh Assembly Government announced its ‘Digital Wales' strategy that aims to get next generation broadband to all firms by mid 2016 as well as people's homes by 2020.
Luca told News Wales: "The licence fee is paid by taxpayers in Wales in exactly the same way as it is across the UK, yet the Government has not guaranteed any money for Wales. This would be less of a concern if there had not already been controversy over the way the Government handled the first round of bids for pilot projects. When Ministers effectively say Wales has to wait for the scraps from a project across the border, it does not inspire confidence."
"It is vital that Wales exerts as much pressure on the Government as possible to make sure it gets its fair share," he reportedly added.
Lucas reportedly thinks that Wales has already missed out on the government's pilot projects and said the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt had told Welsh MPs that Wales would benefit from one of the projects which is in the neighboring English county of Herefordshire.
While Wales would no doubt like some more concrete plans and promises regarding speedier broadband, the UK government is apparently allocating money to specific projects rather than to regions per se.
