By David Meyer, 19 September 2007 08:59
NEWS
The UK government may intervene to promote the deployment of fibre connectivity across the country, according to the minister of state for competitiveness.
Stephen Timms, minister for competitiveness and formerly the UK's ecommerce minister, has made a speech in which he warned of the danger of falling behind other countries in broadband speeds. The speech was made to the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), which recently called for a fibre rollout to keep the UK competitive.
Timms said: "When I became ecommerce minister five years ago, the UK was neck-and-neck with Croatia on broadband availability and use. Together, thanks in no small measure to the work of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, we fixed that problem and put Britain in a leading position. However, today we face a new challenge. Other countries are starting to invest in new, fibre-based infrastructure, delivering considerably higher bandwidth than is available in the UK today.
"As minister for competitiveness, I see it as one of my highest personal priorities that we have a high-performance telecommunications infrastructure in every part of the country, enabling us to compete successfully on a global basis. That is why I have decided to chair a high-level summit later this year to consider the circumstances that might trigger public-sector intervention, the form that intervention might take, and at what level it might sensibly take place."
According to sources at the BSG, that summit is likely to take place in November or December, with delegates from industry, the regulator Ofcom and the government taking part. The BSG is also apparently keen to see the government set targets for measuring the UK's broadband infrastructure against its main economic rivals.
Although the UK's broadband infrastructure is based on a fibre backbone, the "last mile" connections between homes and telephone exchanges are almost entirely copper-based. With high-bandwidth applications such as IP television becoming a reality, many industry figures are concerned at the potential bottlenecks this situation could create. However, BT is reluctant to commit to upgrading copper connections to fibre because, under the current regulatory environment, it would then have to open up that infrastructure to its rivals.
However, the price of copper is rising and BT's outgoing chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, hinted recently that fibre to the home (FTTH) could become a reality in the UK, as it has elsewhere in Western Europe.
David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. Jeremy Wickins
I wonder how much this "government intervention" has to do with a realisation that the ID card system depends heavily on the comms infrastructure. All that data winging its way between terminals and databases on the ordinary internet (for such is the plan) will take up vast amounts of bandwidth. Which of the companies who are looking at the potential contracts mentioned it, provoking an "Ohhh - hadn't thought of that..."?
2. Graham Coles
It sounds to me like the first move should be made to strengthen the advertising laws so that 'broadband' connections should provide the kind of bandwidth advertised rather than just being a theoretical value that you might hope to achieve sometime in the middle of the night.
Forcing them to provide figures for maximum, average peak and average off-peak times will allow us to figure out the sort of broadband speeds we have at the moment. My guess is about a quarter of the bandwidth that the providers suggest we have!
Once we actually get a way of measuring what exists, we will at least be able to see if and when the figures improve.
3. Peter Cochrane
This is all a bit of a shame. I first got fibre to cost in against copper for telephony alone in 1986.
By 1990 the BT team had built factories in Ipswich and Birmingham to produce all the systems for the UK roll-out.
The UK was in the lead and ready to GO fibre to every office and home for a mere £15Bn - just 3 years profit for BT at the time.
BUT THEN the government of the day stepped in and stopped the program as it was anti-competitive!
And the rest as they say is history! Some 21 years later the debate starts again - and the good news is; the cost will now most likely be only £9Bn.
The real cost however will be the loss of competitiveness due to the lack of any real broadband in the UK.
Peter
4. Brian Curnow
Stephen Timms and the Industry have been debating this for years.
It's about time that every home that want's it has access to 100Mb Broadband.
Other Countries have it. Why not the UK?
Let's start planning the nationwide backbone infrastructure that's required to support it.
Can we afford to delay much longer?