Public money 'necessary' for broadband investment

(Tuesday, 1st May 2007)

The government will be forced to stump up public money for investment in the UK's communications infrastructure if we want to avoid becoming a "third world broadband country", a leading network analyst has claimed.

Earlier this month, the Broadband Stakeholder Group warned that if the UK does not invest heavily in high speed broadband in the next two years, it will risk becoming uncompetitive in the international economy, but shied away from calling for government intervention.

As the report was welcomed by both Ofcom and the department of trade and industry, David Brunnen, leader of the network services group at the Communications Management Association (CMA) claims the answer lies in investment from the top.

He told Comms Business magazine: "What it means to say (but technically doesn't, minister) is that we will need public sector intervention if we are to stand a hope in hell of not being a third world broadband country and we had better get on with working out how best to do this.

"The government is keen to proclaim the success of its policy â€“ a 'job done' tick in the broadband box.

France Telecom has begun trials of 100Mbs connections and Germany is also said to be trialling uber high speed connections.

Kip Meek, BSG chairman told the BBC earlier this month: "Broadband matters. There's plenty of evidence that broadband itself has had a very beneficial impact on economic performance.

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