Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn delivered a radical election pledge during the course of a campaign speech at Lancaster University on November 15 2019. He proposed a British Broadband Service, whereby free full-fibre broadband would be made available to every part of the UK, to around 29 million households, by 2030. This “universal public service” would “bring communities together” and provide “a massive boost to productivity.”
The proposal for universal free full-fibre broadband was costed at around £20 billion, and would involve nationalisation of BT’s Openreach subsidiary, which constructs and maintains the broadband network in the UK. BT itself claimed that the project’s cost would be between £30 billion and £40 billion. Under the Labour proposals, expansion of the network would be paid for from its Green Transformation Fund, while ongoing costs would be partly provided by taxes on multinationals using the infrastructure, such as Facebook and Google.
The idea of a national broadband network is not new. Back in 2009, the Australian national broadband network was launched by the Labour government of the day to provide full-fibre coverage to 93 per cent of the approximately 12 million homes across the vast nation. Since inception, costs have spiralled, the network has yet to be rolled out to many rural and regional areas, and performance issues such as slow internet speeds have led the project to be dubbed a “national disgrace”. This is a familiar problem of many overambitious major infrastructure projects, and can undoubtedly provide many lessons to those responsible for digital infrastructure policy in the UK. Notwithstanding, there is no doubt that the poor coverage of the UK with fibre broadband is an issue that needs to be addressed.
First, it is worth taking a look at the basics. Broadband refers to high speed and high bandwidth internet communication, as opposed to the older and slower dial-up ‘narrow band’ communication . There is no clear defining speed for broadband, but download speeds (of blocks of data from the internet) are typically measured in the number of megabits downloaded using the connection per second. Broadband use requires a web-enabled device, one which can connect to the internet, and software for accessing online services. Such devices include desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, smart TVs, and games consoles.
Broadband internet communication can be described as being either fixed line or mobile. In the UK, the types of fixed line broadband available include ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscription Line), which is delivered from local telephone exchanges and through the copper cables of phone lines, cable (such as hybrid fibre-coaxial cables used by Virgin Media, which combine fibreoptic and coaxial copper cables), and full-fibre (fibreoptic cable only). Full-fibre broadband can be either fibre-to-the-cabinet or the more expensive fibre-to-the-premises option, ie, either direct to the home or relayed via a “cabinet” on the street, respectively. Mobile or wireless connection (3G, 4G, and going on to 5G) requires a wireless mobile broadband device, a USB dongle or an internet-enabled SIM card, and access to a mobile phone network, thereby dispensing with the need for cabling. Mobile broadband use, which requires its own infrastructure of mobile phone masts, is currently more popular than fixed (landline) broadband use.
There can be no question that access to broadband, with high-speed internet connectivity, is empowering in an era of global information networking. Broadband allows communication by email, browsing on the internet, networking on social media, viewing of television and video clips, and online shopping and banking, among other applications. Broadband can facilitate working from home and thereby benefit the environment by removing the need to travel to the workplace.
The Labour proposals come with several challenges. The high costs and logistic difficulties of providing high speed internet access in remote and rural areas cannot be overlooked. Providing underground fibreoptic cable over long stretches of land is a challenge in areas that lack terrestrial infrastructure, where less effective and yet costlier satellite systems may be necessary. Some may also be concerned about the extent of government control over, and regulation of, a nationalised broadband service. If Labour fails to win, this particular infrastructure project will inevitably be abandoned, but the quest to extend full-fibre broadband access and to abolish the current postcode lottery of provision within the UK must continue irrespective.
Ashis Banerjee (grateful for the opportunities provided by broadband)