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Former BT Labs head warns politicians UK not even in global top 20
19 Apr 2010 | 13.34 Europe/London
Politicians are kidding themselves if they truly believe the UK is a leader in broadband. In fact, the former head of BT Labs, Peter Cochrane, now a renowned futurologist, claims the country would even make a global top 20 and needs £5bn to £15bn investment in fibre to combat our malaise.
The founder of Cochrane Associates made the comments in a blog for 360°IT, a show due to take place at Earl’s Court in September.
Fibre investment essential
When looking at the £500bn some experts have claimed is required to upgrade the country’s rail, road and air infrastructure (and travel delays are estimated to cut make the UK 20% less productive than its rivals) Cochrane believes it would sense to move beyond measuring physical traffic and consider the cost to the economy of not deploying fibre.
The figures here are slightly less daunting, though, and would come to, he estimates, a more manageable £5bn to £15bn to bring fibre in to every home and business in the country, depending on the technology used.
Without this level of investment, which he claims would be ultimately “insignificant” on a national scale, the UK will continue to languish in 20th to 30th place in a league table of connected countries, well below where many politicians would mistakenly place us. Faster broadband, he claims, is normally associated with at least a 2% leap in GDP.
“In the mind of Government, the UK is at the forefront of the broadband revolution. Unfortunately, we are not even in the top 10. Our ranking is actually somewhere between 20th and 30th,” he claims.
“The UK has to grasp the nettle, stop all debate, and get on with the job. In the next phase we are going to see manufacturing industry transformed by 3D replicators and networked operations across the planet. But without the infrastructure we won't be able to play.”
Losing out
He further claims that if the UK does not act and roll out fibre more aggressively, it will further fall behind countries, such as South Korea and Japan, where fast fibre services are regarded as the norm. This has led industries, such as computer games, to move to the region at a great cost to the UK economy.
“Only five years ago the UK occupied pole position in a computer games industry that has now overtaken Hollywood in GDP generation ($60 billion versus $45 billion),” he says.
“Today that crown is worn by Korea and Japan. Simply put, the industry followed the bandwidth and people in South East Asia now access games and facilities unavailable to the rest of the world.”
The founder of Cochrane Associates made the comments in a blog for 360°IT, a show due to take place at Earl’s Court in September.
Fibre investment essential
When looking at the £500bn some experts have claimed is required to upgrade the country’s rail, road and air infrastructure (and travel delays are estimated to cut make the UK 20% less productive than its rivals) Cochrane believes it would sense to move beyond measuring physical traffic and consider the cost to the economy of not deploying fibre.
The figures here are slightly less daunting, though, and would come to, he estimates, a more manageable £5bn to £15bn to bring fibre in to every home and business in the country, depending on the technology used.
Without this level of investment, which he claims would be ultimately “insignificant” on a national scale, the UK will continue to languish in 20th to 30th place in a league table of connected countries, well below where many politicians would mistakenly place us. Faster broadband, he claims, is normally associated with at least a 2% leap in GDP.
“In the mind of Government, the UK is at the forefront of the broadband revolution. Unfortunately, we are not even in the top 10. Our ranking is actually somewhere between 20th and 30th,” he claims.
“The UK has to grasp the nettle, stop all debate, and get on with the job. In the next phase we are going to see manufacturing industry transformed by 3D replicators and networked operations across the planet. But without the infrastructure we won't be able to play.”
Losing out
He further claims that if the UK does not act and roll out fibre more aggressively, it will further fall behind countries, such as South Korea and Japan, where fast fibre services are regarded as the norm. This has led industries, such as computer games, to move to the region at a great cost to the UK economy.
“Only five years ago the UK occupied pole position in a computer games industry that has now overtaken Hollywood in GDP generation ($60 billion versus $45 billion),” he says.
“Today that crown is worn by Korea and Japan. Simply put, the industry followed the bandwidth and people in South East Asia now access games and facilities unavailable to the rest of the world.”
Trust Peter to hit the nail on the head!
Time to cut out the spin and tell IT like IT is. We cannot continue to milk the obsolete copper for revenue, we have to invest in Next Gen now, before it is to late. The digital economy will not wait for us to catch up.
Great post Sean!
chris
19 Apr 2010 | 14.58 Europe/London
Computer games - is that the best reason he can come up with?
20 Apr 2010 | 07.59 Europe/London
yes, Peter does have a habit of hitting the proverbial nail on the head
... i think computer games is referenced as an example of the economic damage that can be done if we don't keep pace, regardless of whether you enjoy playing computer games
20 Apr 2010 | 15.26 Europe/London
If the UK economy is dependant on people playing computer games we are in trouble!
22 Apr 2010 | 07.36 Europe/London
Somerset, games are Pete's metaphor for intensive broadband usage which include all aspects of tele-presence such as tele-medicine, video-conferencing, remote facilities management and other digital assets management capabilities. His point is that as we move closer to the really intimate computing future where we will have our personal data clouds following us (you can see the beginnings of that in location-based-systems) around enhancing social interactions (you can see emergence with the rise of Facebook, Linkedin etc) while ensuring our automated access to health, education, security, transport and other shared systems (including taxation etc) the demand for broadband will only continue to increase on a per person basis and we need to stay ahead.
22 Apr 2010 | 16.41 Europe/London