Will Digital Britain survive the next election?

Experts at a London forum examined the question marks over the future of the government's vital strategy

Could the forthcoming election scupper Digital Britain?

Experts have already started to question whether or not the government's Digital Britain strategy would survive the next general election.

At a Westminster Media Forum event yesterday to discuss the network infrastructure rollout outlined in Lord Carter's report, the final topic under debate considered whether the momentum generated by Digital Britain can be sustained.

"Will Digital Britain survive?" said chairman for the session, KPMG media partner David Elms.

Although most people presenting at the forum suggested the strategy would survive, some presentations hinted at problems delivering the network infrastructure that underpins the plan.

A ComRes poll for UK online centres suggested that less than half of MPs (46 per cent) and 38 per cent of local councillors think that digital investment will help.

The major problem identified at the forum was the implementation of the two major broadband infrastructure elements of Digital Britain – the 2Mbit/s universal service commitment and the optical-fibre next-generation access (NGA) rollout.

Even BT, the senior partner in the endeavour, was not totally convinced of the economic case for rolling out optical-fibre network connectivity, even though the company has already started operational pilots in Muswell Hill, north London and Whitchurch near Cardiff.

"In the case of NGA, I'm glad the government has recognised that the commercial case for investment across the whole country just isn't there, indeed in the current climate it's still a pretty fragile case for even the more commercial areas," said Emma Gilthorpe, BT Group industry policy and regulation director.

Another major problem identified at the forum was pointed out by Alcatel-Lucent's UK & Ireland director Andy King – that UK-wide NGA rollouts will include both national and local infrastructure and it is vital these networks can inter-operate by common interfaces.

"If commonality is not achieved, there is a very real risk that local networks will be relegated to providing niche services only, which will dramatically restrict their viability and be detrimental to the UK aim of providing end-to-end next-generation access and network coverage," said King.

And the recent announcement by the Conservative party that it would scrap UK communications regulator Ofcom if the Tories get into power could scupper major parts of the project's management, with which Ofcom has been tasked.

For example, Ofcom is responsible for reviewing how the network infrastructure detailed in the report is proceeding, managing extended 3G mobile spectrum licences, and taking the lead in reducing unlawful file sharing.