The quest for speed, and headlines
The government has announced a scheme to pilot superfast broadband in six areas, but is this useful investment of tax-payer money, or is it just chasing soundbites and headlines?
The Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport announced a £10m pilot scheme in August to trial superfast broadband over fibre at speeds of up to a gigabit per second in six areas: Aberdeen, Bristol, Coventry, Greater Manchester, West Sussex, and West Yorkshire. Unusually, London and its immediate surrounds have not been included in this programme. However, if the pilot is successful, there is another £190m in the pot, just waiting to be given away.
Under this scheme, companies in the pilot areas may apply for a funding voucher worth up to £3,000 for installation. The scheme the government has announced is not that different from the 2013 scheme which promised vouchers for superfast broadband of over 30 Mbps, but received very little take up at the time.
Sadly, politicians of all colours love the big expensive headline grabbing hi-tech projects. The UK's digital minister, Matt Hancock, said "To keep Britain as the digital world leader that it is, we need to have the right infrastructure in place to allow us to keep up with the rapid advances in technology now and in the future."
If more companies get gigabit connectivity, that will make the oft-quoted average broadband speeds in those areas higher, but even more unrepresentative, with a few of the "haves" masking the majority of "have nots". The logic behind this move is that it is intended to stimulate the deployment of faster fibre networks. However, cynics might argue that it is just another way of subsidising an already lucrative communications industry, at a time when we are still struggling to get half-decent megabit connections to many rural homes and businesses, and have extremely patchy coverage even in some major urban zones.
It is also misleading to present this as a ground-breaking initiative which needs massive investments from the public purse. As of this month, residents in two social housing developments in Purfleet can enjoy the fastest home broadband connections in the UK after Thurrock Council partnered up with Hyperoptic to bring fibre to the area.
Residents in the two housing developments can sign up for a full gigabit connection, but also have choices of 100Mbps, 20MBps, and an entry-level 5Mbps which costs just £9 per month. That is easily the cheapest broadband package in the UK, and yet it is still faster and more reliable than many of the more expensive broadband packages from phone companies which are laughingly described as "up to 17Mbps".
Following this successful first stage of deployment in the town, the same system will be rapidly rolled out to a further ten social housing developments in Purfleet, bringing great connectivity to approximately 1,900 residents, all at no cost to the taxpayer, and no need for complex voucher-schemes and subsidies.
29th September 2017
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.