Technology reporter, BBC News
 Fibre doesn't have to be expensive |
But there will be large swathes of the country untouched by super-fast broadband and, for some, the answer is a more DIY, community-based approach to fibre.
Fibre might be some way off being rolled out on a national scale in the UK but individual community projects promise to have networks up and running, possibly by the end of 2008.
The community-based approach to net connectivity is nothing new. While BT prevaricated about how far it was going to roll out broadband at the beginning of the millennium, local communities took the bull by the horns and rolled out their own - often powered by wi-fi.
Impatient for speed
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Now the head of the project, Daniel Heery, is looking at how to bring fibre to Alston in Cumbria.
Regulator Ofcom has questioned whether the UK needs super-fast broadband and what applications will drive such networks.
Mr Heery thinks there is a huge market in e-health and e-learning projects, providing remote patient care and streaming lessons to kids.
"I think people are impatient for more speed and are fed up of hearing from the big companies that we can't do it," he said.
"For example it costs £500 per night to keep someone in hospital so tele-medicine has great cost-saving benefits."
The telemedicine project, which is run in conjunction with the local health authority, aims to use video links to aid nurses in the diagnosis of minor injuries, as well as provide set-top boxes which will allow people to book GP appointments and arrange repeat prescriptions via their TVs, and equipment that will enable users to have their chronic diseases monitored from home.
BY -BBC NEWS
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