Thursday, April 08, 2004

Peter Cochrane one time CTO of BT says that we have fallen behind on the Broadband Superhighway. This is like George Bush say that the war on terror was a mistake in Iraq.

The fact that we are behind is due to the fact BT did not invest when he was part of the executive team! I know that he was not in favour of the 3G investment made by BT but as a long time executive he should have been capable of outlining the invest needed to enable the network.

The other missed opportunity would have been for Tony Blair and Co to have taken the assets of all the bankrupted CLECs that dug up Britain to lay Fiber networks and hand it over to Ofcom to run. But as we don't have a socialist government we find ourselves now almost out of the game. With the expansion of the European Union now underway we are unlikely to get funding for rural broadband schemes as thoes countries that are joining are poorer than us. This will result in the Baltic States being given a hand up at Britains expense in terms of technology infrastruction investments. Once the infrastructure is in place expect to see the bright young things all moving into Lativa where they will have access to well educated staff and first rate technology for a fraction of the cost of a Regus serviced office.

Broadband Britain is important not just now but also later I have 3 young children all who have grown up with the Internet. Thanks to Broadband they have been able to experience it wirelessly. I had hoped that by the time they had entered secondary education they would have increased the wireless coverage to cover metropolitan zones and as students they were given access free of charge in the same way as they get Library access today. Without the investment made at the end of the 90's we find ourselves look at ever longer delays which will see us fall back faster than a British Male in the Olympic Marathon on the Superhighway!

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