Digital Business First’s meeting, hosted by Buckinghamshire Business First, at The Clare Centre, Saunderton, near High Wycombe, on Thursday, 15 November 2012.
Speakers, are from left to right: Richard Williams (Birmingham City Council), James Elles (MEP and co-founder of the European Internet Foundation), Richard Hume-Rothery (chairman of the meeting), Lord Erroll (Chairman, Digital Policy Alliance), Alex Pratt (Chairman, Bucks Business First and Bucks Local Enterprise Partnership), Frank Nigriello (chairman, Oxon Business First), Councillor Nick Carter (cabinet member for business and communication, Oxon County Council) and Chris Williams (chief executive, Bucks County Council).
The wagons are rolling. Enthusiasm is spreading for providing backing to the aims of Digital Business First to support a broadly-based campaign to improve Britain’s digital infrastructure.
At last week’s meeting in Buckinghamshire, organised by Buckinghamshire Business First, speaker after speaker lined up to underline the imperative of the need to move faster and to give greater attention to digital infrastructure for the UK to remain competitive with other areas of the globe.
Seen from a Buckinghamshire perspective, Alex Pratt (Chairman, Bucks Business First) said that he had not been to a single meeting over the past eighteen months where the issue of poor connectivity had not been raised. Buckinghamshire has more businesses with under 5 employees than any other county in the South East region and a significant number of these are based in rural areas. By nearly all measurement criteria, it was “top of the food chain” and was prosperous. But it needs to grow, but this will not occur where there is a lack of investment in a proper digital strategy.
Seen from an Oxfordshire perspective, Frank Nigriello (Chairman , Oxfordshire Business First) confirmed this view. A large number of people have contacted him from all walks of life, complaining bitterly that they were being held back by lack of connectivity. Everyone realised that there was a significant communication issue, except the Government, who had created a national jigsaw puzzle that was nowhere near complete, but which they seem unable or unwilling to do anything about. They had to start providing leadership.
Seen from a small business viewpoint, the lack of proper broadband led to considerable delays in providing effective services, leading to increased costs and reduced profit margins…”we need a fast and reliable broadband connection to allow us to grow, be competitive and properly serve our customers.”
These views from the business sector were confirmed from the public sector. Chris Williams (CEO, Bucks County Council) indicated that Virgin and BT forecast 75% coverage by 2014, but at slow speeds: the current need was at least 100mps. The funding available is nowhere enough to advance communications. Why have so much funding in rail, but so little in digital infrastructure? Nick Carter (Cabinet Member, Oxfordshire County Council) noted the strong similarity between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire with a strong divide between the urban and rural communities. Successive Governments have underestimated the scale of the challenge, and have not correctly calculated the money needed.
Consolidating this regional perspective were views from the Birmingham City Council where a similar situation exists with a large number of SMEs requiring connectivity. Their plans for an improved broadband base was being threatened by a legal challenge being lodged by BT and Virgin against state aid recently approved by the European Commission.
Finally, a common theme mentioned by the speakers was the fear of losing our connectivity with the rest of the world. We are in a race with other nations, and are currently not properly equipped to compete. In this global race where the Prime Minister urged recently that everything must be geared to winning that race, there was a strong feeling that we are not even at the starting line, just in the changing rooms. Korea is one of these countries where speeds of 1000Mps are met. We are nowhere near this rating anywhere in the UK.
What next? Steps will now be taken to launch the Digital Business First as a national movement. Talks are underway between the Digital Policy Alliance (DPA) and the European Internet Foundation (EIF) to pool resources and organise such a launch early in 2013. As the chairman of DPA said at the meeting, there is an urgent need for vision from the centre: lack of vision has resulted in an inadequate digital infrastructure. Huge investment is planned in high speed rail to enable people to move slightly quicker, when it should be invested in digital communication.
Last, and not least, Conservative MEPs have endorsed the campaign and invited the newly-appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Maria Miller, to come to explain the current situation for mobile and broadband in the UK. With the approval of state aid proposed from the European Commission a few days ago, there appears to be a green light towards improving UK broadband with some urgency, not least to take increasing note of the global pace of change underway. Encouraging winds are beginning to blow: now is the time to take advantage of them.