Simply put, Finland has become the first country in the world to make broadband a legal right for all its citizens, entitling them to a one megabit per second broadband connection now, with a 100-Mbit/s connection to become a right by the end of 2015.
As a result, all Finns, including those living in sparsely-populated areas, will be connected to the internet with fast fibre-optic or cable networks by this target date. Therefore, the objective of the project is to ensure that nearly all (more than 99 per cent of the population) permanent places of residence and places of business and public administration are no further than two kilometres from a 100 Mbit/s fibre-optic or cable network.
In principle that sounds very similar to Wales but in practice, it is very different.
Unlike the proposals from WAG, telecommunication operators themselves are expected to construct fast connections in densely-populated areas, where there is demand, on market terms. Support will only be given to projects that are not commercially viable i.e. in raising population coverage from 95 per cent to 99 per cent in rural areas.
More relevantly, telecommunication operators will have to dip into their own pockets and cover at least 34 per cent of the costs. The rest of the costs will be funded by the State (66 million euros for the period 2009–2015), municipalities and the European Union’s Rural Development Fund (24.6 million euros).
Therefore, the difference is that
- telecommunications companies are being pushed by the Finnish government to cover the vast majority of the broadband extension within the country (which is why the project is probably costing less than half of the that to be spent by WAG)
- telecommunications companies are expected to put in their own cash of tens of millions of euros into the Finnish project, unlike the procurement exercise in Wales where WAG will pay for the whole project
- financial support for broadband from government and European funds will only be provided in those areas where there is no commercial viability
- other budgets critical to the economy, such as business support which are vital for getting the country out of recession, have not been "raided" to pay for this additional broadband funding
Given this, I wonder if any WAG officials have been in touch with their Finnish counterparts to examine whether the key criteria for the Broadband 2015 project could be adopted for Wales?
It certainly seems to be better value for money, could cost far less than expected and could ensure that telecomms companies, which will benefit financially from the infrastructure investment, also pay their fair share of the project.
It may also mean that less funding would need to be diverted away from supporting small businesses in Wales.
There are clearly different models and technologies for delivering broadband to much of the country (e.g. read this article on Rory Stewart MP and his idea for broadband into rural Cumbria), not all of which necessarily involve government.
The question is whether WAG has thoroughly examined all the options before plumping for the easiest i.e. pay a large telecomm hundreds of millions of pounds to provide fibre across wales.
I would suspect they haven't.
Comments
I've been wandering the same myself whether the relative weakness of Wales in legislative powers could explain why it will cost nearly double the price in Wales.
Perhaps the 'broadband as a human right' legislation or including broadband in its universal service obligation laws (in the UK it's still only PSTN/traditional phone lines) is the legislation trick the Finns are able to use to pull it off. It's 1Mbs now since July but I guess they'll increase it to 100Mbps by 2015. Very clever. And they get the world's attention and some excellent marketing.
I guess there hasn't or will not be an LCO for telecommunications. If there are current calls for broadcasting to be devolved (i.e. following S4/C's ongoing troubles and decreasing airtime for English language Welsh programs) then telecommunications should be included also. It's where the future lies for television.
It's valid and essential for government to invest and ensure we have broadband infrasructure as good as or better than the best of the rest.
But it would be good to learn how they got to the sum of £240million and to know what sort of services and speeds we could expect also by 2015.
According to a newspiece from the Liberty Bishop company:
"Wales looking to attract foreign investment, contractors hear Welsh first minister Ieuan Wyn Jones has highlighted the country's commitment to attracting foreign direct investment, which may create opportunities for UK contractors. Speaking at a recent business event at the National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale, the politician said that inward investment is "crucial" to the Welsh economy and claimed he is attempting to increase the country's attractiveness to overseas companies. Mr Jones pointed out that he recently launched his Economic Renewal: A New Direction strategy, which recommends investing in infrastructure and supporting research and development to encourage more foreign firms to operate there. "[Inward investment] contributes significantly to economic growth and it is our role as a devolved government to create the right environment here in Wales for companies to come and invest," he commented. Last month, opportunities for UK contractors could have been created by the announcement that Sharp Solar UK will channel a £35 million investment into its Welsh plant in Wrexham."
Helping UK companies? Is this really Plaid Cymru's leader. Rather than helping Welsh companies who have been abandoned, his new policy will be helping those companies across the border in England.
Well done Ieuan!
The only sources I can find for this figure from Google are from blog entries and news articles written by Dylan.
The ERP document, at least the one I just downloaded, doesn't mention any costs or intended budgets. If others care to also 'RTFERP', all it says is that they plan to fund it from :
- the reallocation of existing budgets (including proceeds from property sales) (doesn't mention which budgets or how much is relocated)
- from EU funding
- and from match contributions from the ICT sector. (i.e. the private sector)
Nowhere does the document or anything official by WAG (though there isn't much) state £240 million.
WAG haven't really started the work so how would they know how much it will cost. To quote:
- 'the next steps are to engage ... with the market during summer and autumn 2010'.
- 'commence a full procurement exercise by spring 2011'
- 'encourage ICT market to drive forward its own investment in areas with strong commercial cases to do so'
- 'use our own funding in areas where there is a genuine need for government intervention'
It all sounds quite similar to the Finnish approach to me, apart from they legislate rather than 'encourage'.
I am disapointed though that the document aims at 30Mbps to all by 2020. And that's an EU minimum target. Hardly an ambition or a competitive edge for Wales. I was hoping for 100Mps to all by 2016 at the latest.
I encourage open debate on the blog as much as possible and the "Cymro yn Finland" is more than entitled to his view on this. All i would say is that I would prefer, as "disgusted" notes, for small firms to decide what support they need to help their particular businesses. That is my view and some may not agree with it.
p.s. as for the £240m figure - given the paranoic WAG surveillance of this site, do you really think that I would divulge the source of this information, even though it is common knowledge around the small business support community in Wales. Of course, if WAG wish to confirm or deny the figure....
Bern
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/making-a-virtue-of-broadband-patchwork-approach/story-e6frg9if-1225903661285
Disgusted - Jeesh. I was only asking the question since I wanted to ascertain if £240million is really true or not before it really started to worry me and others after the Finnish cost comparison.
Another comparison is that we Welsh tend to be a bunch of hot heads, where as the Finns tend to be a bit shyer and will only speak if backed up by logic, facts, evidence, rules or laws.
I don't have any links to WAG or alliegances to any political party. My holiday here will be soon over, so I won't be Cymro yn Finland for much longer and so I'll be signing off.
Hyvää yötä
As WAG seems to be reluctant to publicly announce the amount being spent on broadband, I am happy to take Dylan's word for it although you may wish to wait 20 days for a Freedom of Information request to filter through. But if you take the argument on job creation and use the data provided in the UK Digital Road to Recovery report from the LSE (facts, evidence) then, logically, if the amount to be spent is lower as you suggest, then the number of jobs created will be far lower and how will WAG be able to justify such expense? More to the point, if it is the same as being spent in Finland, as you suggest, it would equate to only around 5000 jobs created or saved in wales for a cost of £120 million, less than what IBW brought into Wales through their efforts this year and at a cost of only £13 million.
The point you seem to miss is that the argument isn;t about broadband but whether it will help the Welsh economy out of recession and on those figures, it doesn't.