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Equipment maker calls for longer infrastructure investment plans in the U.K. as government talks up country’s position among major European peers.
The U.K. is ahead of its large market peers in Europe when it comes to high-speed broadband rollout and take-up, according to the general consensus among speakers at Total Telecom’s Connected Britain event in London on Wednesday. But for one key industry player, comparisons with the likes of Germany and France are not ambitious enough.
Network deployment is a lot like golf, for Nokia’s U.K. and Ireland CEO Cormac Whelan. The etiquette of the game requires a player to keep up with the people in front of them on the course rather than simply staying ahead of those behind, he explained in a keynote address.
Applying the analogy to the infrastructure required to support the next generation of telecoms services – many of which will be Internet of Things (IoT)-based – Whelan suggested that the U.K. should be looking at "leapfrogging" Asia’s advanced markets rather than focusing on its European neighbours.
It’s a realistic ambition, he said, but "you have to put a plan in place that talks about a long-term investment strategy."
Government terms tend to be short; you can’t look at national infrastructure on a 15-year cycle, he said. The U.K. needs "a stronger investment case over a longer period of ROI."
Food for thought, surely, for a U.K. government that is for the most part congratulating itself on the progress it has made in facilitating the roll out of high-speed broadband infrastructure.
"We are already ahead of the other big five countries in Europe," said the U.K.’s Minister of Culture and the Digital Economy Ed Vaizey, who opened proceedings at Connected Britain 2016. The U.K. has "faster rollout, higher take-up and lower prices," than Germany, France, Spain and Italy, he said.
U.K. consumers spend more per capita on e-commerce than consumers in those markets, which is underpinned by the broadband infrastructure, he said.
There was a similar message from U.K. network behemoth Openreach.
"Britain is already a leading digital economy," said Clive Selley, who took over as chief executive of BT’s networks arm earlier this year.
Nonetheless, there are challenges ahead, Selley said, including continued network upgrades and the rollout of a variety of technologies – specifically a copper and fibre mix – to meet demand.
"We must plan now for tomorrow," he said.
