Government Opens Review to Improve Business Access to Broadband

The UK Government Departments for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) have today jointly launched a new review that aims to specifically look at increasing the level of “affordable and high quality fibre broadband” available to businesses.

At this stage there aren’t many hard details on the review itself, although it’s noteworthy that the Business Secretary, Sajid Javid, made the announcement as part of a speech to the EEF trade association, which champions manufacturing and engineering in the United Kingdom.

Earlier this month the EEF called on the Government to take an “urgent” look at the market (here), not least because they had found that over a quarter of small businesses and half of medium-sized firms were allegedly paying “inflated” costs of more than £5,000 a year for broadband Internet connectivity. Clearly DCMS were listening.

Sajid Javid, Business Secretary, said:

“The UK remains one of the world’s leading manufacturing nations, contributing over £171 billion to the UK economy last year. I was proud to secure an investment of almost £7 billion as part of the national science capital commitment in the Autumn Statement and we have invested £300 million in High Value Manufacturing Catapults in just 5 years. But I want us to do more; I want Britain to be at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution and to lead the world in innovation.

Developing new technologies, an extensive digital infrastructure, vibrant competition and consumer choice are all vital for UK businesses and central to the UK being at the forefront of ‘Industry 4.0’.

That is why today I have announced a wide-ranging review of business broadband in the UK. As a one nation government I want every business, regardless of size or location to benefit from access to the fast, reliable connectivity they need to thrive.”

Terry Scuoler, Chief Executive of EEF, said:

“Access to high quality broadband is critical for business and manufacturers increasingly rely on it. This review is therefore timely and should lead to a significant push by government and providers to help improve digital connectivity and affordability so that companies in the UK can take advantage of more global opportunities.”

Apparently the review will look at “what steps can be taken to encourage choice and competition which will help drive down prices while delivering a better service“. All of that sounds an awful lot like exactly the sort of work that Ofcom are already in the process of doing (examples here, here and here).

Many businesses will also benefit from the Government’s on-going Broadband Delivery UK programme, which aims to help ensure that superfast broadband (24Mbps+) networks will be put within reach of 95-96% of UK premises by 2017/18. This is particularly important for smaller businesses and home workers, where an expensive leased line may simply not be affordable.

On the other hand the Government’s will also need to recognise that different businesses need different levels of connectivity and domestic grade broadband connections simply won’t cut it for everybody. Furthermore it’s likely that the outcome of Ofcom’s Strategic Review, which is due tomorrow, may have an impact on this aspect of connectivity.

According to Javid, the review will pay close attention to “the whole issue of leased lines and the role they play in the market” (there’s an extra word or two about these needing to be “competitively priced“) and in that respect we’re told that Ofcom are to publish their own review of leased lines next week (this is most likely their on-going BCMR2016 work).

Otherwise the statement doesn’t give us any detail about time-scale and that may be because they’re waiting to see what Ofcom says before setting down anything specific.