The digital snail
Last week BT published details of its proposed fibre-to-the home network with broadband connection speeds up to 10 times faster than its ADSL for 10 million homes throughout the UK within four years.
It will be able to invest in the fibre network by making a 10% return from ISPs wanting to provide their own services through the network. Like the roll out of ADSL “broadband” to other ISPs, BT still holds the keys to the motorway network.
10ish years ago, I worked with a Swede called Morre, who set up Sweden’s first website and advised its government on ecommerce and the internet. Around this time ADSL was rolling out in the UK. Morre said that the problem the UK had (and will have) is that the government doesn’t run the motorway network but BT does. If the government owned the dark fibre infrastructure outright and encouraged BT and its competitors to provide competitive “A-road” services on top, then the UK would have true broadband service and not the slow speeds we, as good British citizens, continue to put up with.
BT’s spokesmen argues that some broadband connections are slow because “ISPs have not bought enough bandwidth”. I imagine that’s because of the prices BT charges and it’s not in the company’s interest for them to enable competitors to offer superfast and efficient services.
I posted a while ago after an eForum conference that the problems the internet has should be left up to the brilliant minds that have created some of the greatest internet businesses to solve.
But I want to make clear that while I agree with a light regulatory touch so as not to stifle innovation on the Web, I don’t agree with businesses using the “technical excuse” to maintain a monopoly or widen the digital divide. (The technical excuse is when businesses say to government “oh no, it’s far too technical for you, let us sort it out..”)
We need some intervention now so that we don’t end up with a wider digital divide in terms of access speed and so we don’t continue to fall behind the Far East.