Broadband: Communications Committee Report

Lord St John of Bletso Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord St John of Bletso]

My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on his able chairmanship of this very topical inquiry, and in thanking our specialist adviser, Professor Michael Fourman. All too often, excellent Select Committee reports from your Lordships’ House get scant media coverage, but it was encouraging that this particular inquiry received extensive coverage.

While I welcome the Government’s target of having the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015, I fear that it is a bit of a pipe dream. It is well known, from the raft of current statistics on broadband availability, that the UK is currently 16th in Europe on average connectivity speeds, and 21st globally on percentage of connectivity above 10 megabits per second.

The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, referred to the recent IoD broadband services report, which concluded that faster internet services would improve the productivity of companies by some 83%—a staggering statistic—and would encourage 13% of businesses to hire new staff.

Both this survey and our report concluded that there is, sadly, a very wide divide between rural and urban internet services and connectivity. I entirely agree with the recommendation in our report that if Her Majesty’s Government or indeed private enterprise are serious about providing a fast, resilient, reliable and cost-effective broadband service to consumers, including businesses, we need a long-term and flexible approach to broadband infrastructure policy. I also agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, has just said: there is no doubt that the silver bullet to providing a long-term solution to the ever-burgeoning demand for superfast broadband, particularly as a result of increased data traffic, is the provision of a nationwide, point-to-point, fibre-optic network, ideally installed directly into homes.

Fibre-optic cables are cheap, long-lasting and have scalable capacity. Moreover, they do not suffer from the limiting primary characteristics of copper and aluminium cable. Unfortunately, our legacy communications have been designed predominantly using copper. This has proven to be ineffective for the demands of ever-increasing data traffic.

I concur with other speakers that the Government should not be too concerned about speed; they need to be more concerned about coverage. In this regard I wish to make brief mention of the importance of better utilisation of ducts. It is becoming increasingly evident that the best way to link fibre optic to homes is by using ducts, routed through a multiplexer cabinet situated beside existing PCPs, which are the green cabinets that we see on pavements. It is well known that the UK has a well established underground duct network, and BT and other utility providers also have extensive duct networks. If the Government are to have any chance of achieving their stated objective of providing the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015, more should be done to encourage the utilisation of these ducts for an improved rollout of the fibre network.

Clearly, the last mile provides a major challenge to the effectiveness of providing a superfast broadband network to consumers and businesses alike. Our report made reference to there being,

“no proposed technologies that can offer comparable data rates over long distances”.

It went on to say:

“The bandwidth limits of fibre are around 100,000 times those of copper”.

There is one radio frequency technology that has not been fully embraced, particularly in the remote rural parts of Britain, where there is low population density. White space spectrum was specifically referred to in paragraph 282 of the report. Extensive research was commissioned by the University of Strathclyde a few years ago, partially funded by the Westminster Technology Strategy Board and in collaboration with BBC and British Telecom, in which white space spectrum was used on the Isle of Bute using masts which could deliver, to residents who had previously had almost no broadband access, download speeds of up to 14 megabytes per second and upload speeds of 4 megabytes from a single mast with a three-mile radius. Unfortunately, this technology, which could provide a massive boost to rural communities in Britain, has not been embraced. I certainly support paragraph 282 of the report, which says:

“Loosening the reins a little could very quickly have the effect of bringing enhanced broadband capacity to the final 10%”.

I should perhaps also add that the white space spectrum broadband solution has recently been backed by Microsoft in Kenya, where there is a desperate need for broadband services, and is being installed right now. It is reliably forecast by the experts to provide up to 18 megabytes of broadband within a 10-kilometre radius from a single mast. Technology such as this should be embraced in the overall solution in this country.

I also endorse the recommendation in our report that the Government should incorporate open access to dark fibre, particularly as a feature of the framework agreement with suppliers. Clearly, as the Government’s response points out,

“a mix of technologies will be needed in the UK, given the topography and commercial challenges faced in the more rural and remote areas of the UK”.

While I appreciate the budgetary constraints of the Government, I wholeheartedly support the recommendation in paragraph 266 that the Government,

“should, as an intermediate step, aim to bring national fibre-optical connectivity”,

and, more specifically,

“fully open access fibre backhaul”—

these cabinets referred to by other speakers—

“within the reach of every community”.

This would go a long way to ensuring that the digital divide is not widened.

While much has been achieved, particularly in the past five years, in improving the plumbing and wiring of broadband infrastructure, as my noble friend Lady Deech mentioned, not enough support is being provided for the 7 million adults in the United Kingdom who still do not have the skills and motivation to use the internet and the inherent advantages therein. I should declare an interest as the past chairman of the charity Citizens Online, which has been promoting universal broadband coverage across the United Kingdom, as well as measures to bridge the digital divide. Very few of the new NGA contracts for high-speed broadband under the Broadband Delivery UK remit include any provision for digital inclusion or demand stimulation.

In conclusion, while I believe that a lot more can and should be done to provide a longer-term solution in the provision of superfast broadband across the UK, I found many of the Government’s responses to our report encouraging, although I do not feel that they have gone far enough in their long-term strategy for this crucial utility. Clearly, there needs to be a lot of collective working between government, regulators and industry. In this regard, I wholeheartedly support the recommendations of this report and look forward to the Minister’s reply.