Four weeks can be a long time in the networking industry. This is certainly what July proved as we saw the UK’s digital agenda once again thrust into the media spotlight with a flurry of announcements centred on the development of the UK’s network infrastructure.

The month certainly began in a positive way with Martha Lane Fox, the UK’s Digital Champion, striding into the Cabinet Office to launch the Race Online 2012 campaign. Designed to make the UK the first nation where everyone can use the web, this ambitious campaign has a deadline of 2012 to provide Internet access to the 10 million Britons who have never been online. The figure of 10 million represents more than the population of the country’s five largest cities. The Digital Champion’s approach to achieving this is quite interesting in that she is proposing a community-wide initiative, where we all encourage and offer support to those who don’t currently have Internet access. Whether this be in the form of donating equipment, organising web nights at local education centres or other such communal activities.

David Cameron, the UK’s Prime Minister, fully supports this campaign, saying at the launch, “We need to ensure that people aren’t being left behind as more and more services and businesses move online.” His support comes as no surprise, especially if a communal approach requires no government investment.

Unfortunately, it was Cameron, or more specifically Jeremy Hunt, the government’s culture spokesperson, who somewhat deflated the positive mood surrounding the UK’s digital agenda later in July when he announced that the roll-out of universal broadband to everyone in the UK would be delayed by three years until 2015. At this time, everyone will have access to 2Mbps. This stands as quite a contrast to the universal 100Mbps the Conservative’s promised by 2017 in their pre-election campaign.

And it’s here where there is a clear divide between the government’s ambition to support broadband development and their actual willingness to do so. This stands in stark contrast to other initiatives currently being developed. One need only look at the work of Neelie Kroes and the European Commission with their Digital Agenda action plan or the US, where the $7.2 billion stimulus funding is having a real impact in connecting people.

Thankfully, by the end of July, another announcement showed that the UK’s network infrastructure was improving, even if incrementally, with broadband speeds across fixed lines hitting download speeds of 5.2Mbps.

With the UK’s politicians now on summer hiatus, one can only hope that they return to parliament with renewed vigour and focus and a greater understanding of how to move this country’s broadband infrastructure forward.

What do you think? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the UK’s digital agenda and what improvements you believe we can make to start moving the country and it’s network forward.

Update:

Martha Lane Fox discusses the challenges of building a networked nation with no financial backing from the government. Read more here.