BBC: UK parliament calls for Internet to be classified as a public utility

A world-class country should have world-class Internet access.

by Sebastian Anthony - Feb 18, 2015 6:13am PST  BBC


The chamber of the House of Lords
UK Parliament

A new report published by the upper house of UK parliament—the House of Lords—has called for Internet access to be reclassified as a public utility. Further, the report says that the UK is falling behind other countries when it comes to both high-speed Internet access (i.e., new fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-node deployments) and universal Internet access—two factors that could significantly affect the UK's ability to compete in the still-rapidly-growing international digital economy.

The House of Lords' call for UK Internet access to be reclassified as a public utility is very similar to the conversation surrounding Title II reclassification of ISPs in the US. "We conclude that the Government should define the Internet as a utility service, available for all to access and use," reads the summary ofthe House of Lords report. The report stops short of discussing how this will actually work in a legal sense—that's probably up to the next UK government—but it does mention Estonia, which was the first country to add Internet access to its list of human rights, as a very good example to follow.

Beyond universal Internet access, the report also discusses how the United Kingdom lags other countries in terms of high-speed access. In January 2015, an Ookla report placed London in 26th place out of 33 European capitals. There are also a large number of "not-spots" in urban areas, where Internet providers decided that it didn't make economic sense to deploy new infrastructure (usually fiber). In both cases, the House of Lords is worried that these problems will affect the UK's long-term international competitiveness.

The current government has been fairly good at investing in both fixed-line and wireless coverage across the UK, but clearly other countries are investing more—or at least investing more wisely. The incoming UK government will hopefully be formed in May, following a general election. With some awesome new technologies coming down the pike—LTE Advanced, "5G," and gigabit G.fast DSL over copper wires—there's an opportunity for the new government to play a big role in encouraging commercial ISPs to deploy universal, high-speed Internet access.

Sebastian Anthony / Sebastian is the Senior Editor of Ars Technica UK, covering just about every aspect of science and technology. Starting in spring 2015, he and his ragtag crew of tea-drinking, scone-scoffing writers will take the UK tech scene by storm.@mrseb on Twitter