Minister sides with BT’s rivals in plans for improved broadband

Matthew Hancock, the UK’s new minister for broadband, has warned BT he was “on the side of the challenger” in the government’s attempt to improve Britain’s internet speeds and coverage.

Hancock told the Broadband World Forum that the UK wanted “ubiquitous connectivity by 2020, hotspots of hyper connectivity, and doing the work now to deliver fibre and 5G in the future”. He also used the speech, his first on broadband since he replaced Ed Vaizey as minister, to “pay tribute” to BT’s rivals for pushing speeds higher with projects such as Gigaclear’s investment in the Cotswolds and Sky, TalkTalk and CityFibre’s project to connect York to a faster fibre network. He underlined Kcom’s investment in “full fibre” networks in Hull — the only part of the country not touched by BT’s network — that expects to double its ultrafast broadband base by the end of 2017 — without any government subsidy.