The ICT industry might take heart from the fact that new Minister for Competitiveness Stephen Timms used his first major speech to focus on broadband access across the UK.

As evidence of his understanding of the correlation between investing in advanced technology infrastructure and competitiveness, Timms announced he will chair a high-level broadband deployment summit that will take place before the end of this year, where he wants to bring together key people from government, Ofcom and industry.

But is it really the case that the UK’s network infrastructure has a sloth-like performance, or is it a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence – the grass in this case belonging to the UK’s global competitors in the digital age.

It is not necessarily the best option for the Treasury to empty its coffers putting optical fibre into UK residences. A more intelligent approach might be to give further consideration to the amount of bandwidth required for future services, and who will need direct access to them, and base any investments on this analysis.