The joy of the internet

Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing?  One of its particular blessings is giving us unprecedented access to the workings of government.  Take, for example, the oral evidence submitted to the inquiry by the House of Lords Select Committee on superfast broadband.  This video evidence is available here. 

The Committee’s findings may or may not influence government policy but there’s no doubting the intellectual value of some of its input.  For instance, I’ve just been listening with interest to the thoughts of Francesco Caio, currently CEO of Avio Group, but formerly of C&W and the author of a 2008 report on barriers to investment in next generation access, Caio makes the important point that another facet of the internet is to separate the roles of service provider and connectivity provider.  As the internet increasingly provides direct access to end services – voice telephony, movies or whatever – the identity of the connectivity provider becomes increasingly irrelevant.  Since this separation idea conflicts with the current model of duopoly competition in the UK – based on the respective bundles of services offered by BT and Virgin Media, we may need to think again about that model of competition.  In particular, we may need to address (again) the concept of last-mile access as a natural monopoly.  So just targeting ‘the best broadband network in Europe’ may not be a sufficient goal for the UK:  Caio believes that policy makers need to set some kind of vision for the long-term aims of the country’s broadband sector.   

All good stuff - and brought to you free by the wonders of the internet…