Wacky Racers

As this year ticks by, and 2015 looms ever closer, the race to equip the UK with ‘the best broadband network in Europe’ becomes ever more intense.  BT, as usual, appears to have played it’s cards rather well in the country’s adopted form of public-private partnership;  the company announced last week that its overlay, FTTC network will now reach two-thirds of the country - 19 million homes and businesses - by spring 2014, rather than the former objective of end-2015. In reality, and notwithstanding the efficiency claims of Openreach, the repeated announcements of acceleration in FTTC deployment increasingly suggest that the original commitment was something of a soft target.  Nonetheless, BT can clearly claim to have done its bit to honour the government’s broadband ambition. 

Spare a thought, then for Maria Miller.  She got off to a flying start with her announced sweeping away of the ‘swathe of red tape’ that frustrates broadband planning but her feet were barely under the DCMS table when she was landed with the BBC nightmares resulting from the Jimmy Savile scandal.  So it was perhaps understandable that the Culture Secretary would focus outside Westminster for the causes of any slippage in the public sector’s contribution to broadband goals… Yes, you guessed it: the answer is yet more infuriating red tape, but this time in Brussels.  According to The Telegraph last week, the Culture Secretary “has demanded an urgent meeting with Europe’s Competition Commissioner over EU delays that have seen schemes worth more than £530million held up since January”.  (This diatribe against Brussels mandarins draws a convenient veil over the earlier  ‘evidence of failure’ and ‘sclerotic progress’ within Miller’s own team at BDUK). 

​ Anyone inclined to place bets on the broadband contest should probably wait until the end of the year when, according to the Government response to the House of Lords ‘alternative vision’ Report, Ofcom will publish the first European scorecard.  Exciting times!…