They have announced a list of cities eligible to bid for super-fast broadband funding. However, the experts think that the cash might make no difference to a lot of British cities.
The permit to grab the remaining money and find themselves a part of the super-fast broadband project was given to Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and Bradford. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently taking bids from the towns able to plead the best case for receiving the money, which will involve explanation of how they are going to use the 80-100 Mbps speeds to push growth. Meanwhile, the broadband will be supplied by ISPs BT and Virgin.
As you understand, the competition will mean that some cities will lose out on the cash. However, it still seems to make it easier to allocate the resources more fairly. Industry observers think that there are still doubts about the ability to make a difference to 10 cities taking into account the amount on the table. By limiting the funding to 4 pre-selected capital cities, and adding 6 out of the 10 cities only going to get into the project, the UK will least have an idea of how far the money will have to spread. The authorities pointed out that a lot of cities are already approaching existing targets for 2015, like Cardiff, despite the fact that such steps might have been made prior to any knowledge of further funding.
Mainly, the cities have been working towards improving Internet connection, though it is not clear whether some of their projects were going ahead with the prior knowledge that government funding might be available. However, experts agree that the offered amount is little in comparison to the scale of the task in improving broadband systems, but if the authorities will carefully target the worst served locations, it might make a difference. Nevertheless, the best people can expect is that the project will ensure broadband at speeds well above the 2 Mbps available everywhere.
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