Here's the 8th comment posted on The Times (by yours truly)
Technically illiterate twaddle, as we've come to expect from our political leaders. There may be a case for ensuring that some minimum standard (say 2 Mbps) is universally available (though delivering even that to a croft in the Highlands and Islands wouldn't be cheap), but beyond that lie some serious issues.
The first issue is a technical one; delivering high-speed (100Mbps) broadband requires a new (probably fibre optic) link to every property. In Japan, S Korea, and many European countries a substantial proportion of the population live in large multi-occupied apartment blocks. Connecting them to the Internet requires just one cable for hundreds of people. But in the UK the vast majority choose to live in our own homes each of which will require its own link, adding an order of magnitude to the cost.
The second issue is economic - what is the benefit of high-speed broadband? At present, domestic use of the Internet is mainly for accessing web sites, email, and streaming or downloading files. For the first two of these, even 2Mbps is ample. The time taken for web pages to load is actually much more constrained by latency than line speed. I wouldn't pay 50% more for a 100Mbps connexion to replace my current 8Mbps, but I might if I could halve my latency (something Google appear to be working on). As for file streaming and downloading - if I need to download a new operating system image, which might be a few gigabytes in size, I start the process and then get on with something else. It's of little relevance to me whether it takes a few seconds, a few minutes or even an hour. The only time that line speed is important is when watching a streamed video feed and an HDTV channel only requires 8Mbps (that's the bit rate of the HD channels on Freeview+) - exactly how many HD channels do we expect to be watching simultaneously?
So the "small pine furniture manufacturer in a remote village in my constituency, the young woman who designs and sells handbags, the wildlife photographer who sells pictures online" will see no benefit from high-speed broadband. I can see no prospect at all for the "between 280,000 and 600,000 new jobs" that Mr Davis foresees (except some short-term work for ditch diggers and cable splicers) . For 99% of people, having high-speed broadband is like owning a Ferrari in the middle of London. It may make the neighbours envious, but it won't get you to work any quicker.