Digital Policy Alliance Calls for UK to Review Failed Broadband Strategy

The Information Society Alliance (EURIM), a not-for-profit policy studies group, has today re-launched itself as the Digital Policy Alliance (DPA) and immediately started calling for the UK government to review its “failed” national broadband strategy.

The DPA, which claims to be “representing top companies and charities” (e.g. Google, Microsoft, IBM and Cisco), has leapt on this week’s House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry into the UK government’s superfast broadband plan, which lambasted the current strategy for failing to tackle the rural Digital Divide, not doing enough to boost competition and only delivering improvements “for those with already good connections” (here).

As a result the new alliance says it intends to “press for more action” from the government on issues of technology uptake and broadband, which it believes are essential for giving our economy a much needed boost. Apparently the DPA is already “working to provide expert solutions to broadband roll-out through the sharing of existing local authority infrastructure” and has brought in ex-Downing Street adviser, Sean Worth, and Lord Erroll, a peer with experience in the technology sector, to help oversee its policy work.

Edward Phelps, Secretary General of the new DPA, said:

“Government urgently needs to review its strategy for broadband roll-out. Government has failed to inject competition into the broadband market leaving many innovative providers unable to offer their services. The current approach would appear completely at odds with the localism agenda.

The Alliance is the only organisation which brings together industry experts with charities, civil servants and politicians to show Government the unprecedented potential for public good that digital technologies offer.”

Sean Worth added:

“I believe the next big digital revolution will happen in public policy – governments using powerful digital technologies to promote growth and jobs, while at the same time building a better networked and inclusive society. Broadband is a big part of realising that vision, so I’m delighted to be working with the Digital Policy Alliance on this crucial issue.”

In fairness the Lords report was far from perfect and failed to cost some of its more radical proposals, which among other things included the idea of effectively asking home owners to pay for the “last mile” of new broadband infrastructure themselves and pushing all TV traffic on to the internet. But in other areas, such as its concern over the lack of competition (with only BT and an unproven platform from Fujitsu in the running), the report perhaps came much closer to reality.

Similarly the industry had a much more mixed reaction to the Lords report than the DPA suggests, not least because it appeared to overlook the benefits of wireless/mobile connectivity solutions in tackling the digital divide and focused almost entirely upon the creation of a national fibre optic infrastructure. Unsurprisingly this is an idea that the DPA, in its old EURIM form, also appeared to support (here).

Ultimately anything that brings better broadband connectivity to the country is a good thing but there are many potential ways to accomplish this, most of which could be achieved by making only moderate adjustments to the current policy (e.g. allowing more/smaller ISPs to tender for public funding).