Plea to bring British Broadband out of the Dark Ages

The British car manufacturing business is as good as dead, more and more of our call centres are moving overseas and Britain's oil production peaked in 1999 and has already dropped by half. Over the years what we saw as traditional UK industries and businesses have suffered but we don’t need to fret because the future is all about IT and we’ve got that covered. Haven’t we?

Well actually no. According to sector skills body e-skills UK dwindling numbers students taking IT-related exams could pose a serious threat to the UK’s future competitiveness. In addition, despite the rapidly growing number of broadband users, the UK recently came a rather dismal 9th out of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation's (ITIF) European league table for broadband speeds.
IT qualifications are important but I’m also a firm believer in learning on the job so as a longstanding member of the telecoms industry, it is the latter of these two facts that astounds and concerns me the most.

ITIF results showed an average UK broadband speed of just 2.6Mbps, which compares with 21.7Mbps for top European player Finland. Looking further a field doesn’t paint a rosier picture either. In Japan broadband connections are hovering around the 100Mbps mark!
How can we compete? It’s quite simple really, we need to upgrade to a much faster fibre optics system. The catch? Cost of course. It is estimated that this upgrade with require a £15bn investment. BT doesn’t want to pay it and see its profit margins suffer and as they dominate the UK telecoms space, there isn’t really anyone else who could foot the bill.

Unless you consider the government as an option; pretty quick to take £22bn off the mobile operators for their 3G licences back in 2000 and more recently quick off the blocks to prop up Northern Rock with a cool £25bn. In comparison £15bn to help secure the UK’s competitive position in the Global economy seems like chicken feed.

In many ways it’s no longer an either/or choice i.e. private or public, it's about looking at models that will work for the UK but decisions need to made quickly. If nothing is done, it will end up just like our road system and we’ll get stuck with the broadband equivalent of A-roads (or worse) while the rest of Europe builds high speed motorways.

On a plus note, if that is the case, I guess the economical implication will mean our road situation matters less. After all, who really cares about the state of the road when you can only afford to drive a Vauxhall Vectra? High speed super cars will be exclusively for our more successful European counterparts to enjoy - on their high speed motorways of course!