Nice move but no game-changer

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve no wish to rain on anybody’s parade, least of all that of the new Culture Secretary, Maria Miller.  The ‘swathe of red tape’ she plans to sweep away from the bureaucracy of broadband deployment is truly welcome, has been widely applauded and will no doubt lessen the pain for many of those intending to lay fibre.  I’m not even going to quibble over the fact that the DCMS press release which details the government’s intentions is riddled with phrases like ‘facilitate discussions’, ‘broker a new deal’ and ‘review existing schemes’ – none of which could be accused of excessive  precision.  No, the dissenting voice in my ear simply makes the pedantic  point that the overwhelming challenge in constructing a broadband access network is the business investment case, particularly since the asset deployed is both sunk (literally and metaphorically)  and earns unusually slow pay-back.  Other than at the margin, none of this is changed by the DCMS announcement.  So, while a VM spokesperson is right to confirm that “steps like this will help support Virgin Media's on-going private investment”, it unfortunately remains the case that the requirement for wholly new infrastructure is essentially unaltered.