Can Narrow Thinking Deliver Broadband?

According to yet another source, this time a report from the London School of Economics, the United Kingdom government’s targets of 100% access to fast broadband (with 90% access to a superfast service) by 2015 are unlikely to be met.

The LSE report suggests there is a funding gap in excess of £1billion and urges the government do more to ensure that short sighted underinvestment does not damage the UK economy over the longer term. This connection is well made as any country without effective broadband services is likely to fall behind economically as an increasingly globalised and technology - enabled marketplace develops.

A government spokesman has denied this saying they were confident of completing the roll out by 2015 as promised. He explained that that the government has always been very clear that the current investment was not intended to meet the full cost of delivering to these targets. This funding was intended to be an economic enabler that would help make it viable for the private sector to roll out broadband to areas where it would otherwise be commercially unattractive.

Is he right, or does the LSE have a point?The government is quick to point out that the UK is considered to be one of the top spenders in fast broadband and on this basis looks like the government is ahead of the game. However in defence of the LSE lets look a little closer.

The UK is 17th in a Global ranking of broadband penetration but 31st in a ranking of superfast services. In terms of a developed 21st century economy this is not great and a high level of investments is needed to move from this low base up the league table.

HMG is hoping providing faster broadband will be attractive to investors and that they only need to sugar the pot in areas that are challenging economically possibly due to low populations or difficult geography. This is a gamble and the outlook uncertain.

What is clear is that in financial terms there is a funding gap and this will remain the case until the commercial sector start to commit their resources to this. The government are referencing big numbers as evidence of a high level of engagement and activity but they are ignoring a bigger picture and they are no doubt hoping nobody asks why they are this far behind the curve in the first place.

This answer to this could well be that we left it to the private sector to delive to the cheapest cost (to provide the maximum) for the minimum effort. That is fine, it is what companies do which is why we should not rely on them for some things. When we need something bigger, better and centrally planned it is for government to show some leadership.

So let us hope they do so or we will find that when the next big thing arrives the UK will still be lagging behind its competitors dragging its ailing economy behind them.

CM