The next phase of the United Kingdom's campaign to get everybody hooked up to "superfast" broadband is out of the bag. The plan was announced on Monday by Secretary of State for Olympics, Culture, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt in a new report titled Britain's Superfast Broadband Future.

Key to the new proposal is a "digital hub" in every city, village, and town by the end of the UK's current Parliament. The report defines this hub concept as "a central digital point in every community with a high speed connection to the nearest exchange. Communities would then take responsibility for extending the network to individual homes."

"Superfast" in the UK is defined as Internet access above 24Mbps, generally provided by fiber, DOCSIS 3.0 cable systems, or DSL pushed to the limit.

These communities will have help in getting these hubs underway. The plan recommends an investment of £50 million in a new wave of testbed projects, in addition to the four pilot programs already in progress.

And the proposal urges Britain to find ways to cut broadband infrastructure costs. Answers include "increasing shared access, work[ing] with house builders to make new home broadband ready, and cutting the costs of laying cable by clarifying the rules on streetworks."

Anchor hubs

We have somewhat similar plans afoot here in the United States. These include efforts to get "anchor institutions" in the US (hospitals, schools, community centers) connected to 1Gbps fiber, much of it the dark fiber that was laid out in the late 1990s.

And the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan recommends that federally supported road and constructions projects automatically build conduit into their infrastructures, making it easy to add cable or fiber later on.

But the Brits also require their principal telco, British Telcom, to share its lines with smaller providers who can pay, as well as its systems of ducts and poles.

"A 'digital hub' in every community in the country is at the heart of the Government's £830 million strategy to make sure the UK has the best broadband network in Europe by 2015," the report boasts.

A more detailed set of recommendations to implement the plan will come in the spring of 2011.