Was 2011 a year of positives for broadband?

Plenty of negatives have been levelled at the state of Britain's broadband infrastructure throughout 2011, but if you take a look at the year as a whole, you'll see there are also a huge number of positives that can be drawn.

Rewind to the end of 2010 and the government had just named Cumbria, Herefordshire, North Yorkshire and the Highlands and Islands as the UK's four super-fast broadband pilot sites.

To date, work still hasn't begun in any of these areas towards rolling out advanced broadband networks, leading to much criticism of the coalition and its policy vehicle Broadband Delivery UK.

However, signs of progress were made in December when Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt imposed a deadline for all broadband funding applications from English councils.

As a result, local authorities must submit their broadband proposals by the end of this February or stand to miss out on state aid - a move that has finally injected a sense of urgency into the national broadband strategy.

While the government has begun to sort out its own measures to improve connectivity across the country, the private sector has also been doing its bit.

Virgin Media has been hard at work throughout the year increasing the footprint of its ultra-fast up to 100Mbps fibre optic broadband infrastructure across the country.

In November, the cable company announced a major milestone for the rollout - the service had been made available to 20 million people, or around a third of the UK.

Not to be outdone, BT responded with the full commercial launch of its own 100Mbps fibre broadband package, choosing Bradwell Abbey in Milton Keynes, Highams Park and Leytonstone in London, Ilford in Essex, Ashford in Middlesex, Forest Hill, Chester, York, St Austell and Exeter as the first communities to benefit.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that between them, the private and public sectors can do even more to improve broadband connectivity throughout Britain in 2012.

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