Comfort crumbs

There’s been much moaning and gnashing of teeth this week because EU budget cuts have slashed the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), some €9.2 billion of which was previously earmarked for subsidising superfast broadband networks in member states.  No one likes to lose a potential hand-out but I do wonder whether largesse from Brussels is the best funding model for the UK’s broadband development.  For similar reasons, I’ve always had some reservations about the abstract performance targets set by the Digital Agenda. 

This touches on a difficult debate: should broadband provision be driven by what’s technically possible or by what’s envisaged from current needs? In the language of elementary economics, are we talking about ‘supply-push’ or ‘demand-pull’?  I freely admit that I’ve long been an advocate of the former: let’s build networks now that are resilient enough to cope with unforeseen demand. But there’s a good argument, too, for linking broadband objectives to some kind of long-term view of the type of network provision that makes sense as an aspiration for the market in question.  This was a central argument put forward in last year’s report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Communication, ‘Broadband for all - an alternative vision’: 

“In this report, we propose an alternative vision for UK broadband policy, which, rather than being target driven, makes the case for a national broadband network which should be regarded as a fundamental strategic asset, to which different people can connect in different ways according to their needs and demands”. 

Is there a risk that this ambition of ‘knowing where we’re going’ might be harder to maintain if both the performance metrics (targeted download speeds) and network funding (subsidies) originate outside the UK?  Or am I just making the best of bad news?