UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s £5 billion broadband plan ‘ludicrously unrealistic’

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s election promise to connect the entire country to cutting-edge broadband speeds by 2025 has been dubbed “ludicrously unrealistic” after the parliament’s spending watchdog warned that rural internet users risk being left behind by the slow pace of progress. The comments from Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, followed a National Audit Office report that said the 2025 target was “challenging” and warned that those rural areas risk being further left behind. The government launched a £5bn plan to subsidise the upgrade of telecoms networks to full fibre from older copper networks in rural areas in September 2019. The funds were designed to connect the final 20 per cent of the country but little progress has been made in delivering on the plan, according to senior industry executives.