Home-owners in rural backwaters of the UK will have been greatly disappointed by the latest announcement by the government on broadband availability throughout the country. It now looks as though they will be still be arranging their household insurance over the telephone for an extra 3 years.

In a move that is in stark contrast to the speed that the new coalition government has moved in announcing cuts in expenditure and cuts to the health and benefit services, Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has decided to move back the target for ensuring all households in Britain have a minimum of 2megabites per second broadband speeds.

Mr Hunt said that with the country still facing economic problems it had been decided to move the target from 2012 to 2015. Speaking at an IT conference he said “I have looked at the provision the government had made to achieve this by 2012. And I’m afraid that I am not convinced that there is sufficient funding in place,” he said. “So, while we will keep working towards that date, we have set ourselves a more realistic target of achieving universal 2mbps access within the lifetime of this parliament.”

The decision will affect over two million people in rural districts of the UK who have slow broadband speeds. William Worsley, President of the Country Land and Business Association, said the news will be a devastating blow to the 150,000 or so people who have no broadband connection at all and rely on the dial-up system, he went on to say “This setback comes at a time when rural Britain is desperately in need of effective and affordable broadband. It will seriously compromise the ability of the rural economy to succeed in the future.”

One spot of good news came when the Culture Secretary did say that £250 million that was allotted to the digital turnover and was left unspent will be redirected to the broadband programme.