Financial Times

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s promise to deliver nationwide “turbocharged” broadband by 2025 will be missed because of a catalogue of government failures, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded. The public accounts committee criticised the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for failing to make any “meaningful progress” in delivering policies or legal changes to achieve a rapid rollout of gigabit broadband. As a result, thousands of homes and businesses, particularly in rural areas, could be left with slow broadband for many years, MPs warned.

The Covid-19 lockdowns were expected to push the resilience of broadband and mobile networks to the limit. With millions of people suddenly working from home, it was widely expected that telecoms companies would struggle to keep everyone connected, particularly in countries where full-fibre broadband levels are low and 5G upgrades remain a distant prospect. Yet networks mostly held firm as minor outages and service difficulties such as jerky Zoom calls proved surmountable for most workers, children and furloughed staff stuck at home.