Ofcom calls on the private sector

‘STOP SPENDING public money’ – that’s the message being sent out by Ofcom this week as the regulator decides that the public sector should take a minor role investing in high bandwidth broadband.

Senior Ofcom official, Peter Phillips, said yesterday that public investment should be "targeted at areas left behind by the markets".

The Westminster eForum conference, “Next Generation Broadband”, held yesterday, highlighted Ofcom’s wishes for the private sector to get more involved with this investment.

Phillips said that the regular wants the private sector to get much more involved in providing the infrastructure for high-speed broadband connections of 25-30Mbps.

Although this is no surprise from Ofcom, Phillips did acknowledge the lack of appeal for private investors in some areas – here the public sector will have no choice but to invest.

Phillips states that, "The public sector should consider action to implement private investment but not crowd it out."

Before the implementation of private investment it was estimated that the existing broadband network would reach just 60-70 percent of the UK – yet now it is penetrating almost all of the country.

Nick Palmer MP said that what’s important here is that the benefits of high bandwidth services are clearly highlighted in order to prompt private investment.

The UK broadband network as we know it has been installed almost entirely by the private sector – with a mere handful of rural areas needing government intervention. µ

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