Broadband still has room for expansion

When Computing launched its Broadband Britain campaign in 2002, it was only just beginning to dawn on business and government leaders how far we were slipping behind our global competitors. Two years later, there are now four million connections in the UK and the rate of adoption is still picking up speed.

ADSL coverage should reach 99.7 per cent of the population by next summer, at which time BT believes we will see eight million connections.

The government's policy of being an über-customer offering instant critical mass for broadband developers paid off. All schools, for example, look certain to have broadband connections by 2006.

Even better, the original debate about local loop unbundling has been largely overcome, not least by competition from new forms of connectivity, notably wireless. That innovation should increase, perhaps by other forms of delivery.

The problem is that many of our competitors have also made big strides forward. The latest OECD figures suggest that the UK has moved from 22nd to 17th in terms of take-up and remains sixth among the G7 countries. And there are still issues to be resolved on networking, and particularly pricing.

Perhaps the most crucial concern is how we actually use the technology. The means to connect may be in place, but the take-up and exploitation of benefits remain relatively low. Just 18 per cent of UK businesses and organisations currently use a high-speed service, according to analyst Ovum.

The gap between availability and use is greatest among small businesses, although there is room for optimism with 40,000 new links being added per week.

In the public sector, the issue is not generally one of connectivity. The challenge is using broadband in ways that clearly and measurably exploit its advantages.

Schools watchdog Ofsted last month called for fresh emphasis on use. "At the regional level, there is a need to move the support for broadband from its focus on infrastructure to ensure that more effective use is made of the opportunities it offers," said Oftsted's annual ICT in Schools report.

The beauty of broadband is not simply faster, always-on connectivity. It should and will enable new ideas and new working methods. Up to now, impressive results have been found in simply speeding up existing services.

An NTL survey claimed that two-thirds of businesses believe that broadband has significantly improved customer and supplier communication. The research even suggested that businesses switching from dial-up to broadband are saving 52 days a year in productivity.

But even that optimistic survey admitted that that one-third of businesses just don't understand what the tangible benefits might be, partly because the emphasis has been on 'speeds and feeds' rather than applications.

Home working, remote back-up for off-site data security, videoconferencing and distance learning are all applications that have yet to make their mark. Perhaps the most promising area is the development of voice services, but that represents a challenge to vested interests.

"Broadband take-up in Europe is lower than comparable markets in the rest of the world, such as the US, Japan and South Korea," said Rupert Wood, principal analyst at researcher Analysys.

"European incumbent carriers dominate the broadband market, which is another disincentive for alternative providers to engage in voice-over-broadband."

As a result, Analysys believes that the voice-over-broadband market will represent no more than 4.3 per cent of the fixed voice spending in the leading European nations by 2009.