A government inquiry team is likely to advise against major state intervention in a UK-wide fibre optic network.
Francesco Ciao, the vice chairman of Lehman Brothers in Europe who heads the review has already expressed the opinion that an ultra high-speed broadband network should not be publicly funded, and that this decision would not be detrimental to the competitiveness of the UK digital market. “What is emerging is that the UK is still one of the most dynamic markets across Europe,” he said.
“Broadband penetration has done very well. And as for the internet economy, we still have the highest expenditure on e-transactions in Europe. I would hesitate to advise any government and say, ‘Actually this is so important, so vital for the future of citizens, businesses and the media, forget it: let’s go back to a more constrained market dynamics and put fibre everywhere. There are other technologies, wireless for one, that will increasingly deliver alternatives. You might run the risk of putting £15 billion into the ground.”
However, many in the technology industry have been eagerly anticipating the planned fibre-optic network which could achieve speeds of up to 100Mbps, compared with standard copper wire connections today which tend to reach around 8Mbps. The inquiry looked at the extent to which Britain’s economy would fall behind if the expected £15 billion were no invested in a fibre optic broadband network.
“Although some other European countries are beginning to deploy next-generation access, I don’t think we are in a position to say the UK is falling behind,” Ciao said.
“The infrastructure seems to be fit for serving the needs that we have and there are early signs of competitors beginning to plan ahead to deploy next-generation access. I can’t see any reasons to be particularly concerned about a material gap in competitiveness.”
The review, commissioned by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform will be presented to ministers this autumn.
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Jello said on 09 Sep 2008 at 8:35 am #
Utter bollocks. Who is he to say what the needs of UK consumers are? He’s not even a UK consumer himself.
Whilst the current UK ISP market might be great for shareholder figures, it shure as hell ain’t great for the customers.
Francesco Ciao should make like his surname and bugger off.