Stephen Carter sounds warning bell on broadband infrastructure
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Former Labour minister and author of the Digital Economy Bill Stephen Carter said that the coalition government must consider whether investing in the UK’s broadband infrastructure can afford to be delayed.
Carter (pictured), now at Alcatel-Lucent, spoke at the Westminster Media Forum on Britain’s Digital Future, today (2 September).
He said: “All governments, like all management teams, have a chance when they are new to decide where the priorities are. This government is going to focus on macro-questions of reducing public expenditure.”
He did not condemn this as a “wrong decision” but said it was a decision, nevertheless, and it appeared that investing in and encouraging private sector contributions to building a fit for purpose broadband network were not high priorities for the government.
Carter said he did not agree with the colaition’s shift in target from 2012 to 2015 for universal broadband access in the UK and added: “We were pilloried for not being ambitious enough.”
Several panellists at the forum pointed out that the UK was slipping behind other countries in terms of supporting the creative industries and broadband infrastructure were once it led.
Carter, also a former CEO of Ofcom, said that it might be time to revisit some of the regulatory framework surrounding broadband and the digital spectrum and “look at what is the big strategic question for the next five years.”
The Digital Economy Bill was passed in April and faced a barrage of criticism for being rushed and watered down from the original proposals
One controversial element was a proposed 50p levy on phone lines to fund the improvement of national broadband speeds to 2MB. This was transferred to a Finance Bill, but that was also dropped.
Readers' comments (2)
rabicamail | Thu, 2 Sep 2010 9:43 pm
It's come to something when the so-called 'private' sector want even more of taxpayers money to fund the things they should be doing themselves. Just like the utilities who want us to pay green to clean up their act and the train outfits who can't seem to run a bloody train without public subsidy, not to mention the weapons manufacturers and their guarantee schemes
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Brian Healy | Fri, 3 Sep 2010 8:54 am
The myopic stance and failure of the Con-Lib's to act by government intervention to tackle market failure to meet economic and social objectives will not help UK plc. The only constant is the change and the need to improve economic efficiency. Waiting for the markets to deliver on universal access to broadband at higher speeds when it ready fails on basic broadband provisions defines logic and credibility the only plausible explanation is blind ideology which has no relevance or place in the 21stC.
On a matter of fact your report is wrong; the levy was never transferred to the Finance Bill. It was always there because of the "tax" raising powers. This was cynically attacked by the Tories in the "wipe up" process under the last government, thereby effectively killing the Digital Economy Act by making it toothless with regards to producing the finance for a more inclusive Broadband network.
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