Letters
Faster broadband is vital for post-COVID world
I don’t share Hugh Collins’ shoulder-shrugging attitude towards the country’s broadband deadlines (‘Who cares if UK misses 2025 broadband target?’, Issue 592). In the past few months we’ve seen millions of people start to work from home for the first time. Some of them might return to the office when normal times return, if they ever do. But most of them won’t. For this new breed of home worker, fast broadband is essential.
It’s not good enough anymore to simply say that if you can browse the web or send emails, that’s all you need. Home workers need much faster download speeds to access and work on documents and to take part in video meetings. It’s as essential now to their work as a reliable train was to their pre-COVID commute.
The only way out of this disaster is to invest in a digital recovery. There’s no going back to the old world of two-hour commutes, packed trains and expensive city-centre office blocks. We need world-beating broadband that will allow workers
