Is there really such need for haste on National Broadband Network?

Stuart Corner
Friday, 19 September 2008 11:09

Opinion and Analysis

This, it says: "does not translate into subsidies or structural changes in regulation, but rather a set of initiatives that could support and inform the activity of regulators and industry players in their journey to NGA. The government should seek to remove obstacles that could potentially delay or compromise the development of the new network."

Specifically, Caio recommends that the UK Government:

- develop a framework for delivery of future broadband, setting out how the it would like to see the market or infrastructure develop, in order to provide all parties involved with a clear sense of direction;

- carry out a set of policies which stop short of major intervention (i.e. major subsidy or a structural change in regulation) but which might lower the cost of deployment for operators and facilitate investments in NGA nationally and locally;

- establish permanent monitoring and benchmarking processes to monitor progress in the development of NGA in the UK in relation to other countries;

- invest time and resources to identify remedies that should be implemented in case of major (comparative) delays in the in deployment of NGA.

Those recommendations may well not apply in Australia. They may not even be right for the UK, and inevitably the review will attract dissenting views. But, once again they demonstrate the level of scrutiny to which a project of such size and far reaching national importance is being subjected by the UK Government. And so it should be.