Britain should only have one goal post COVID: make the UK no.1 in the world for fast, ubiquitous internet access.
Deploying mega-fast internet access countrywide at emergency, crisis level speed, would have the best ROI of any initiative to increase GDP, decrease unemployment & stimulate growth.
Dear Prime Minister,
Do you want an affordable government policy to claw back growth after BREXIT and Coronavirus? Making the UK globally number one for internet access, is it.
We have a broadband policy I hear you cry, you (the Prime Minister) announced an extra £5bn for broadband in 2019. But with respect, this is not thinking nearly big enough.
“Ericsson and Arthur D. Little concluded that for every 10 percentage point increase in broadband penetration GDP increases by 1 percent.”
There is good evidence that both broadband access AND broadband speed have a disproportionately positive impact on economic growth.
Be in no doubt, the Internet and technology is the future of everything
Given that this is the case, from farming robots to quantum computing, I am frankly surprised anyone is surprised by these findings.
What is so frustrating is that we’re not making the very obvious decision to prioritise this.
To be fair to you (Boris Johnson) you seem to understand that fibre is the way forward. You promised £5bn last year and a deadline of 2025 to every home. But we’ve heard this before and as Rory Cellan-Jones pointed out, does reducing the timeline from Theresa May’s 2033 to 2025 not cost more?
Sure enough the government later stated:
“…[the government] will achieve nationwide coverage ‘as soon as possible’.”
To quote you back at yourself, fibre broadband ‘as soon as possible’ while not funding it sufficiently is laughably unambitious.
Also ‘coverage’ is not enough. We should set a goal not of “fast access” but “the fastest in the world”.
Doing this would be amazing value for money
Analysis of HS2 reports potential GDP growth of ~0.0 to 1.9% depending on region. It will cost ~£106bn and open in 2028–2031.
I’m a proponent of these big infrastructure investments which have been put off for far too long in the UK, but under funding something by a factor of 20x which will have at least the same and likely 2–5x greater the economic benefit, is a missed opportunity of gargantuan proportions.
Rolling out fibre (along with a healthy dose of 5G) would involve no planning disputes, no 10 year wait, no damage to Sites of Special Scientific Interest or ancient woodlands, and best of all no political pitfalls: What party will argue against gaining the fastest internet in the world for our country?
Why are we not number one on this graph?
In terms of access, the UK ranks 13th in the world for fixed-broadband subscriptions per head of population and 74th for mobile cellular subscriptions, per head of population.
Mega fast internet access should be viewed by our government like access to clean water: everyone should have it no matter what it costs.
What excuse is there for us not to invest £10bn, £20bn or even £30bn (in other words: whatever it takes) to get us to the world's fastest, most ubiquitous internet access for home and businesses, within 24 months from now?
The impact of this would be exponential:
- Decreased public transport & road traffic due to instant, amazing video calls, producing a workforce ready for the post-COVID flexible-working world
- Ability to use real telepresence systems — opening up new remote tooling such as high resolution VR and AR for industries not easily served today by internet connectivity, such as engineering
- Working faster with less downtime decreases stress and increases productivity
- Increased desire to move to the UK to start internet companies
- Having a digital infrastructure ready for the next generation of online cloud computing, processing greater amounts of data — think quantum computing, petabytes of sensor data and next generation life-like VR.
- Future working infrastructure resilience against an inevitable future outbreak of some nasty disease.
“Recent reporting on gigabit broadband service in Chattanooga, Tennessee has
attributed 1,000 new jobs, increased investment, and “a new population of computer programmers, entrepreneurs and investors” to gigabit broadband”
Perhaps, if you’re struggling to garner political support you can give @RishiSunak & every relevant departmental head on down (including the to the C-suite of @WeAreOpenreach) a rate-limited 5mb internet connection for a week. Then switch it to a 250mb+ fibre.
Would this help key stakeholder internalise why having the fastest ubiquitous internet IN THE WORLD should be the UK’s most important objective in 2021, second only to COVID?
This is a time for bold ambition. If we want to claw back growth post BREXIT and post COVID, over-investing in the world’s fastest internet, done on war footing speed, is the one single investment which is 100% guaranteed to give UK plc a high rate of return almost immediately, paying itself back in years not decades, impacting positively not just generations to come, but as soon as it is done.
yours sincerely,
Andrew J Scott
References:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/113299/economic-broadband-oecd-countries.pdf
https://www.adlittle.com/en/insights/press/press-release/new-study-quantifies-impact-broadband-speed-gdp#:~:text=Little%20and%20Chalmers%20University%20of%20Technology%20in%2033%20OECD%20countries,economy%20increases%20GDP%20by%200.3%25.&text=Little%20concluded%20that%20for%20every,GDP%20increases%20by%201%20percent.
https://www.analysisgroup.com/globalassets/content/insights/publishing/gigabit_broadband_sosa.pdf
https://www.econstor.eu/obitstream/10419/60385/1/72027561X.pdf
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldeconaf/134/13410.htm
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50042720
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49881168
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/internet-speeds-by-country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_broadband_Internet_subscriptions
