ResPublica welcomes the European Commission’s proposals for €9.2 billion in high speed broadband investment
ResPublica welcomes the European Commission’s proposals to spend
almost €9.2 billion from 2014 to 2020 on pan-European high-speed broadband projects,
announced on Wednesday 19th October 2011.
The announcement indicates that the Commission is working with the
European Investment Bank to create a fund that will drive growth. Part of a
pan-European approach which will help the UK and its trading partners, the agreed
strategy between governments aims to lift the economy out of stagnation by
particularly targeting areas most likely to create significant payback in terms
of jobs and economic growth. The
information technology sector is vital here.
The ResPublica paper, ‘Capturing the Cloud: Technology-Driven Growth and
Innovation in the UK’, identified the benefits that more rapid adoption of
cloud computing can bring to jobs, growth and the economy generally. At present
the customer experience and promise of cloud computing is dependent on the
weakest link in the communications supply chain. This initiative will help to
fix the weakest link, and bring the cloud computing opportunity closer with its
fund for financing the improvement of the high speed broadband infrastructure.
The report author, Tim Cowen, says,
“Across Europe it is well understood that communications and technology
is vital for productivity and economic growth. This is not a stand-alone
sector, but cross sector technology where the investment pays back in as many
different ways as the industries that it touches. Different business make up
the modern economy, from car manufacturing to fashion, but all have a common
need for a high quality IT and communications system. For example, the use of
high quality IT enabled Fiat to produce its new range of cars at lower cost and
with a massive reduction the time from the drawing board to the showroom. The
same is true of the systems that have been put in place behind one of the high
street success stories such as the Zara fashion chain which used ICT to
massively improve its time to market for the clothes that continue to be made
in the EU.
“Whilst progress has been made, there are forthcoming issues which can
be exemplified by recently developed national clouds in Germany, where voices
have been heard to say that ‘a German cloud is a safe cloud’. In France the ‘Andromede’ joint venture has
been proposed between the French State co-investing with a number of private
companies. These national clouds may undermine the work that has been done to
develop a pan-European infrastructure and potentially reduce the economy of
scale benefits that would be possible, and from which everyone would benefit,
if there were a truly multi-national use of cloud computing.”
ResPublica’s New Economies workstream will
continue to explore investment in infrastructure and technology which will
enhance competitiveness and create jobs and prosperity. The New Economies workstream is one of
the three core frameworks of the ResPublica Trust, the not-for-profit entity launched
in July 2011 which oversees all of our domestic work.