John Higgins

In the past month, broadband has been in the news a lot. Communications watchdog Ofcom announced that broadband providers should make consumers aware of the download speed they can expect from their connection, not just the maximum available speed. At the same time, the BBC embarked on a tour of Britain to compare access and download speeds around the country. Its conclusion: there is a big urban-rural divide in terms of broadband access. This is clearly an issue close to the hearts of many consumers in the UK as a record number of people commented on the issue on the BBC web site, with many complaining of being in the broadband slow lane. But what does this mean for IT managers?

The capability of our communications infrastructure is a real competitive differentiator for the technology sector. For example, video calling could make remote working and disparate teams so much more effective. This would open up a huge new talent pool as location really is rendered irrelevant.

The key communications infrastructure for the next 10 years at least is next-generation broadband. The UK has the fastest-growing market for broadband access and the most extensive availability in Europe, yet we lack widespread deployment of fibre or other next-generation broadband technologies. If this issue is not addressed soon, the UK will fall behind other countries that are already deploying next-generation broadband.

We are already seeing the beginning of this phenomenon. In The Economist e-readiness rankings, the UK fell two places to seventh in the world last year. As fast broadband can provide competitive advantage, enabling faster innovation and economic growth, anyone responsible for broadband in businesses should be concerned about this.

A couple of weeks ago, the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) published a report that found that the UK could reap “significant social and economic value” from the wide-spread deployment of next-generation broadband. However, it did not urge operators to invest now. Instead it said there “may actually be considerable value in waiting for a limited period in order for more information to emerge, before investing”.

While I agree with the BSG about waiting both to learn from other countries’ experiences with next-generation broadband deployments and until robust business models for the technology exist, as an industry we must start preparing the ground now.

Enterprise IT managers have a key role to play in this. Let me explain. One of the reasons commercial broadband providers are not currently building next-generation networks is that they are not convinced that users want super-fast broadband enough to pay for it.

It is estimated that rolling out next-generation broadband access in the UK will cost £16bn, so it is not surprising that operators are cautious about investing. But if all businesses were prepared to pay a little more than they do now for enormously improved broadband services ­ we are talking here about consistent phone-service levels of quality, as well as speed ­ a viable business model for investment by broadband providers could be created.

Surely it is worth paying extra for the opportunities fast broadband can offer? It is up to IT managers to make the business case for faster broadband and help generate more demand. Once this happens, providers will quickly lose their Reluctance to invest.

No one said the path to next-generation broadband was going to be easy, but it could be of such importance that I believe we should all play our part in bringing it about.