The Government hopes that telecoms companies will invest billions of pounds in upgrading networks. It has said that £530 million of public money will be spent on the plan.
The Government agency tasked with acting on the plans said that this was made up of £300m taken from the BBC licence fee and £230m left over in the fund that paid for the switchover from analogue to digital television.
The use of the leftover funds from digital switchover had been announced before, when Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt created Broadband Delivery UK, the Government body which will supervise the plans and operate pilot schemes in rural areas.
The Government's Infrastructure Plan (52-page / 1.6MB PDF) said that it would "support the UK’s broadband network, benefiting around two million households, including in some of the most remote areas of the UK. As part of this investment, the Government will also pursue superfast broadband pilot projects in North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Herefordshire, and the Highlands and Islands".
A Treasury spokesman told OUT-LAW.COM that the plan is designed to integrate public spending with private sector investment. The Plan itself underlined the reliance the Government will have on private sector spending on telecoms networks.
"The private sector is best placed to develop the broadband network in the UK, and has promised substantial investment over the coming years," it said. "The primary role of the public sector is to ensure that the market works as efficiently as possible and potentially to provide some investment in the network where it is not economic for the private sector to do so."
The Government will publish a national broadband strategy in December, the Plan said.
The plans have been criticised by a senior industry figure. Phone and internet provider TalkTalk said that spending the money on spreading the coverage of superfast networks is "the wrong focus".
"We think the funds should be focused on ‘digital inclusion’ – helping the 10m of our fellow citizens who do not use the Internet to start using it and enjoying the benefits it delivers," said TalkTalk director of strategy and regulation Andrew Heaney in a blog post. "The simple maths show that spending on digital inclusion is the right priority."
"In rural areas NGA networks cost upwards of £1,000 per home passed," he said. "Based on experience elsewhere only 10% or 20% of homes might take up the new faster network. That means that it will effectively cost £5,000 to upgrade a home from 2Mbps [megabits per second] to maybe 40Mbps. For that same amount 10 or 20 people could be helped to use the Internet for the first time and enjoy the immense benefits it brings."
Heaney said that TalkTalk supported Government plans to ensure that everyone in the UK has access to 2Mbps internet access ahead of the public subsidy of superfast networks.
The Government pledged in June to adopt the previous Government's pledge to ensure that all households have access to broadband at that speed, but dropped its commitment to make that happen by 2012.