§ 113. Mr. Nicholas BennettTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has made any estimate of cost of providing free of charge a computer for every household in the United Kingdom linked to a national fibre-optic cable network.
§ Mr. Forth[holding answer 20 April 1989]: I have been asked to reply.
The costs involved would depend inter alia on the type of computer. There are some 18 million households connected to the national telecommunications networks.
407WPA Consulting Group in its report "Evolution of the United Kingdom Communications Infrastructure" estimated that a national fibre-optic grid, artificially advanced, would cost an additional £21 billion over 20 years. Computers can, however, be linked up whether or not the networks are fibre-optic.