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<p>The Government took a power In the Digital Economy Act 2017 enabling the introduction
of a new broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO), which would give people the
right to request a connection, at a minimum speed, from a designated provider, up
to a reasonable cost threshold. On 30 July, a consultation on the proposed design
of the broadband USO was published, and the Government also announced that BT had
volunteered a proposal to deliver universal broadband. The BT proposal, if accepted,
would be legally binding, and deliver a minimum speed of at least 10Mbps, with many
premises receiving substantially faster speeds. BT's offer has the potential to deliver
better connectivity to people more quickly than under a regulatory USO so we are considering
it carefully. A decision will be taken on the best route to deliver universal broadband,
once we have considered the responses to the regulatory USO consultation which closed
on 9 October, and worked through BT's offer in detail with them.</p><p> </p><p>Once
a specification for a broadband USO is set in secondary legislation, it would fall
to Ofcom to implement the USO, by designating one or more universal service providers
and imposing regulatory conditions on them. Ofcom would also be responsible for enforcement
of these conditions.</p>
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