Academics behind a paper that looks into the Costs and Benefits of
Superfast Broadband in the UK, believe they have identified a shortfall in
the funding for the 2 Mbps Universal Service Commitment and the secondary goal
of 90% of the UK having access to superfast broadband (service at 25 Mbps or
faster.
The shortfall is not small, it is some £1,100 million, with around £1,300
million already coming from the various public authorities behind the BDUK
projects. The FT has a
comment from a DCMS spokesperson indicating that this shortfall has been known
about for sometime, and the public money was meant as a stimulus to reduce the
risk allowing commercial operators to roll-out services to more of the UK.
For once we feel we must agree with the DCMS, as since the creation of the
BDUK, and the crude outlines for the project were announced, the fact that
commercial operators were expected to match fund has been well known. It is
this level of match funding that has often meant areas are left with one or two
operators willing to roll-out a service. Since many of the smaller operators
would not be able to raise the £10m to £30m needed to match fund in most
counties.
The LSE brief gives little clear indication where the figures come from, but
a summary is easy for money available up to 2015:
- £530m from Government for USC and final third projects
- £20m in a rural broadband fund, to assist the hardest to reach areas
(update 10th May 2012, there is some doubt whether this is new money or part of
the BDUK £530m) - £100m to ten of the larger cities across the UK
- £50m announced in the Budget for ten smaller cities to improve
broadband
This gives a total from central Government of £700m, and local authorities
are expected to match fund this, hence the £1.3 billion figure from the LSE.
How did the LSE arrive at a £1.1 billion shortfall? We suspect it is based
around some 2008 figures that indicated FTTC across the UK would cost
£5 billion. With totally commercial rollout of FTTC/P by Openreach due to reach
2/3rds of the UK, then an approximation of £2.5 billion for the remaining 24%
to hit the Government target, and provide 2 Mbps to the remaining 10% is what
we believe Government broadband policy has been based around.
The need for commercial investment, has been well recognised by Fujtisu and BT, both
declaring themselves happy to put money into the pot, in both cases the amounts
previously suggested are very close to the supposed shortfall. Evidence of BT
putting money where its mouth is, can be seen with the £30m added to the £32
million pot in Lancashire (BDUK allocation was just £10 million).
In the UK we love to complain, and be able to point the finger, but based on
what we have been able to read so far, the LSE paper appears to ignore well
known public facts, and even makes the claim that 2 Mbps if fast broadband,
when a symmetric 2 Mbps has been the broad definition of broadband in use since
its inception many years ago.
Further investment to allow deeper penetration of fibre in the local loop
would be welcomed, and while this has to be the ultimate goal of any broadband
projects, it is simply the case that this would be prohibitively expensive to
accomplish, with costs for the UK varying between £15 billion to £29 million.
Some studies have shown the rewards are potentially higher, the question is who
wants to invest that money, and receive the return on investment. Or should the
UK forget commercial realities, and create a non-profit fibre network, which
would involve years of legal wrangling and probably not deliver its first
connection until 2017. The latter model has its attractions, but the
opportunity was four to five years ago, we are now in a fire-fighting situation
if we believe the 2015 goals are worth sticking to.
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Where is HS2 funding coming from?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9646638-688e-11e1-a6cc-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1toAXYmrT gives some suggestion, and
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/funding_for_hs2
Seems that HS2 may move towards a private/public funding situation, as so loved by Governments
The current government doesn’t care about broadband in the UK. They had a bit of underspend on the TV switchover and offered it up as a gesture, its not serious money and it didn’t cost them anything to do as we’d already been taxed on it so.. they’ve not actually invested anything really to date.
The previous government sought the imposition of a new line of taxation. This need was negated by reallocating existing funding. Which naturally comes at a cost as it means such funding cannot be allocated elsewhere.
I suspect a new nationwide fibre network would level the playing field a little too much for some.
Frankly the UK government shoubld keep well away from any broadband delivery.
Given their past history with projects, it will be over budget, 10 years late and not fit for purpose anyways
Living in a rural area with pathetic broadband speeds, no BT interest and a County Council only talking about how to spend its pathetically small BDUK funding there is only one option open to the local community – do it yourselves!
Far from being unrealistic this something that can be achieved. A wireless system that is described on Bluewan.com could be the answer, but all sorts of problems have to be overcome. Government and Local authorities should look at ways of promoting these self help schemes and providing information such as location of fibre networks.
@ undecidedadrian – if the government did not provide some form of intervention then I would be stuck on slow broadband indefinitely. In fact I suppose the government have to do something it is part of a wider EU agenda.
@ chilting –I don’t think the BDUK projects will be as bad as some people make them out to be. Is Openreach FTTC (with the option of FTTP on demand) really that bad compared to what we’ve got now? Living in rural North Yorkshire I am due to benefit from the BDUK project here. Having been in regular contact with those involved in the project I am actually quite optimistic about what the project will deliver. I do understand that there will be areas that do not get SFBB through BDUK and this is where JFDI schemes such as B4RN have a place.