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CBN: Public Service Transformation and Demand Stimulation
Leveraging public investment in broadband A workshop and seminar from CBN and The Open University, in association with the Centre for Creative Collaboration, University of London Tuesday 25 June 2013 12.30 Registration and lunch, finish 17.30 followed by drinks and networking The Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street London WC1X 9NG Local authorities and
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Principles of intervening in broadband & digital isolation
Following on from the previous post, “Public or Private“, which looked at the different models of public intervention in markets generally, this post begins to explore the different models for intervention in broadband markets. This is not a practical critique of any particular approach – more a quick look at the theory. The basis of this
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Public or private?
I seem to have found myself in a number of discussions recently where the role of public and private funding has become a hot topic – not specific to any scheme or country but in general – so I decided to write up my own view of this. Most parts of the modern world take
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National legislation with global impacts
The Internet blackout by many of the big names in response to proposed US legislation isn’t the first time law makers and internet pioneers have faced up to each other, and its also not the first time that national legislation, attempting to target a national issue, has had potentially significant impacts on the running of
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What’s actually going on?
It still surprises me that after 18 months there seems to be confusion in the twittersphere about what is actually happening in terms of broadband deployment and the goal of the government’s policy. There have been conversations which seem to jump from a position that fibre to every home is the only real NGA solution to suggesting they are
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Steering the QE2
The hand wringing over the global economy continues, and the UK is now having to consider a second round of quantitative easing (QE – hope no-one thinks this will be about luxury cruises). In normal times we have Qualitative Easing – changing the quality of the money supply by adjusting interest rates. When you can no longer adjust
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Its all about black and white
Anyone who has been close to any public sector involvement in broadband is likely to have come across references to Black, White and Grey areas but I get the impression that the meaning is often not well understood; this is perhaps not surprising because there are in fact two models and rarely in my experience is the
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Everything should be made as simple as possible. . .
The debate about what’s going wrong with the broadband policy is becoming quite complex, messy and somewhat emotional. For me, the key policy of making the UK the best “superfast” (meaning > 24 Mbps) broadband market in Europe is the right one. Delivering that in tandem with the localism bill and while supporting SMEs couldn’t
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BDUK Framework update
Since I wrote about the impending BDUK procurement framework, there seems to have been a little movement which I think it right to acknowledge. I wrote that a source told me that the framework would require revenues of at least £40m in each of the last two years – in the “final draft” I understand is due
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What’s happening to the Big Society in broadband?
For many who’ve been campaigning to get better broadband into the UK’s rural areas the Government’s Big Society policy agenda is a very welcome opportunity to really make a difference, to fix this problem once and for all. With BD-UK’s programme under way and DEFRA announcing £20m to support rural community broadband things seem to be
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