'Real' broadband: do we need it? Why? Will we pay for it?

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 30 May 2007 12:21

Opinion and Analysis

It considered how different types of 'IT literate' households might behave where bandwidth available was unlimited. Specifically it did not "constitute a business case for the deployment of next generation access services by any party, public or private." No consideration was made of "the commercial case for deploying such a service or of the value to the UK economy of such service being available."

Earlier this year the BSG tried a different tack with the very aptly title "Pipe Dreams? Prospects for next generation broadband deployment in the UK.

It cited a study on the impact of broadband on UK firms prepared for the OECD that "showed a strong correlation between broadband adoption, automated business links and an increase in productivity." 'Broadband availability, use and impact on returns to ICT in UK firms', Raffaella Sadun
(CEP/LSE) and Shikeb Farooqui (ONS), OECD Working Paper, 5 April 2006.

Yet it was unable to identify sufficient commercial incentives to ensure the timely rollout of a next generation broadband access network "This suggests that a gap is opening open up between the 'public value' to society of next generation broadband and the 'private value' available to investors in these services," the BSG concluded.

This should cause all the proposals for FTTN rollout in Australia to be viewed with suspicion: if the UK's leading broadband advocacy group can't identify a business case from an investors' perspective why should Telstra be so convinced it has one.

Could it be something to do with retaining monopoly control over network infrastructure, perhaps.