Digital Britain fails to start the Revolution

Jun 17 2009 By Andrew Hebden, The Journal

A WEEK ago in these pages we launched the Great North Revolution campaign, a major debate about how the North East economy might look in 100 years – and an effort to identify what we need to do now in order to get there.

It was interesting, therefore, that the Industrial Revolution analogy should be borrowed by the Government yesterday as it unveiled its long-awaited Digital Britain report.

On the eve of its publication, the Communications Minister Lord Carter argued that, just as the canals and railways had provided the infrastructure for the Industrial Revolution, so fibre optics and cable in fixed and next-generation mobile technology are key tools that will enable a new revolution to take place over the coming decades.

This grand vision inevitably got somewhat lost once the detail of the report was finally published yesterday afternoon.

Today’s headlines will be dominated by the £6 annual "tax" on every copper-wire phone line in the land, the proceeds of which will be used to pay for the roll-out of next-generation broadband networks.

The Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is quite right when he says that building an effective infrastructure is a fundamental part of making Britain fit for the digital age. And ending the postcode lottery access to high-speed broadband is an important part of that, especially to areas such as the North East with a large rural population.

Failure to address these issues will not prevent the region exploiting its potential to be at the cutting edge of the industries of tomorrow, but it could hinder our progress.

There was therefore much disappointment surrounding the apparent lack of ambition displayed in yesterday’s report.

For example, how is the £150m a year raised from the phone line tax going to be sufficient to deliver a communications infrastructure fit for the future when estimates suggest £3bn is required to create a national fibre-optic broadband network?

Moreover, critics have told The Journal that areas such as Northumberland and County Durham may be among the last to feel the benefits of the upgrades promised in the report as the Government focuses on easier to achieve "quick hits" to prove it is delivering on its promises. It’s like building a network of railways and canals that only links half the towns and cities in the country. And that’s no way to stimulate a revolution.

We are holding the first of our online debates about the Great North Revolution on our website this Friday – and we have a prestigious line-up of experts taking part. Leading the discussion will be CBI director general Richard Lambert and he will be joined by Chris Pywell, head of strategic economic change at One North East, Bob Coxon, chair of the Science and Industry Council for North East England, and Lucy Armstrong, chief executive of the Alchemists.

If you have a question to ask, you can log on to the debate from 11am on Friday at www.nebusiness.co.uk/revolution  or email me at andrew.hebden@ncjmedia.co.uk.