Great minds thinking…

I don’t know why but I find myself surprised – and a little excited - whenever I see something in the press that echoes one of my own stories.  Like a little boy, I want to put my hand up and shout out: “Sir!..., Sir!, I wrote that in my blog last year!” Well, you can imagine my reaction when I recently spotted not one but two such reports…  

The first was another reminder that the explosive growth in mobile data relies very heavily on capacity provided by fixed networks. My piece last November used new data from Ofcom’s Infrastructure Report to show that the volume of data flowing on fixed lines is roughly 24-times that of the mobile networks.  The more recent – and rather more interesting - perspective on this issue comes from a chart in a WIK presentation recently reviewed by Fiber Revolution.  The chart shows an international comparison of the proportion of mobile data traffic that is offloaded to Wi-Fi networks. The conclusion drawn from this is striking, i.e. 

 “Basically, only a quarter to a third of the data traffic consumed by mobile devices is actually delivered over mobile networks (except in Japan and India where it’s half)”. 

The second instance of look-alike coverage concerns the government’s proposed spend on the HS2 rail project.  Way back in March 2011, I merely observed that this planned spend, £33bn, was more than enough to provide point-to-point fibre to every household in the UK - the deluxe broadband option (estimated by Analysys Mason to cost less than £29bn).  In fairness, the updated version of the same comparison, provided by Nesta, does a much better job.  Nesta argue, pretty convincingly, that the broadband option would not only be cheaper but achieved faster and capable of delivering greater economic benefit… 

So, OK, it’s always possible for subsequent coverage to buff up the prose or to refine the analysis:  but I just remind myself that this is, after all, ‘the sincerest form of flattery’!

Some old, familiar tunes

Still trying to catch up with the last month’s news, I’ve only just got around to looking at the widely reported criticisms, by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), of the government’s handling of major infrastructure projects – including the various broadband funds administered by BDUK. Primarily, the PAC berates the government’s National Infrastructure Plan (NIP) for being merely ‘a list of projects’, rather than “a real plan with a strategic vision and clear priorities“(phrases which will be all too familiar to Members of the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Communications).  However, it was another of the PAC’s observations and suggestions that I thought particularly apposite; there are only five Recommendations in total, and I think it’s worth quoting this one in full. 

“Investors must accept some degree of transparency over their costs, risks and rewards in delivering infrastructure projects given that the costs of government support will ultimately fall on taxpayers and consumers.  Most economic infrastructure investment takes place in a private sector market where investor returns are often supported by government and households bear the costs of infrastructure in their bills. In return, investors should provide sufficient information to show that their returns are reasonable and that any government support is justified. The Treasury should require investors to supply the information needed to facilitate this transparency and should reserve the right to audit such information”. 

For ‘investor’ in this context, indeed sole commercial investor, please substitute BT and its role in the BDUK affair.  Now, I nearly said ‘fiasco’ there but I know that wouldn’t be right because, as Ed Vaizey assured us all on 18^th April: 

 “It just so happens that BT has won the [rural broadband] contracts, and I reject the suggestion that it is behaving like a monopolist. We are getting value for money for our contracts, and BT is a great British company doing a great job for Britain.” 

Followers of Ian Grant will recall seeing that Vaizey quote in Ian’s original story of 22nd April.  The relevance of the PAC recommendation (above) to BT’s legitimate expenditure (and return on investment) is detailed in Ian’s reports on the variously reported costs of BT’s new, FTTC street cabinets – on 16th April and earlier.  Can we really ask ‘a great British company’ to provide (audited) justification of its costs…?