Digital Britain? In your dreams

Gordon Brown wants the UK to become digital capital of the world, but his government seems to be trying its best to make sure it can never be

Prospects for a Digital Britain look bleak

Ever wondered why you dream? There’s no shortage of theories out there, from Sigmund Freud’s view that dreams are disguised fulfilments of repressed wishes, to one that views dreams as a test drive for new ideas, and another that thinks dreaming is just the brain cleaning up mental clutter ready for the dawn of a new day.

Taking Freud’s wish-fulfilment view, how many out there are dreaming of a UK-wide optical fibre-based network? Not many, I suspect, especially after the publication last week of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report.

The thing that really gets steam coming out of my ears, is Gordon Brown’s speeches on how important all this is to the UK economy. Comments such as: “We can’t leave this to chance,” and: “The UK will become the digital capital of the world,” would seem to suggest that he understands how important this is to UK plc. The government’s actions fail to match such rhetoric.

Which other country still has an agency ­ a Valuation Office Agency, to be precise ­ that considers optical fibre in the ground as a taxable asset? In fact, the tax only applies when the fibre has data going through it, and it gets worse, because the rating system favours large carriers with large numbers of fibre connections. For small carriers rolling out a few fibres, the charges are harder to swallow.

There is simply no financial incentive for these smaller ISPs to roll out fibre to the 25 to 30 per cent of the country that Carter has said will miss out because it is currently economically unviable.

Let’s move on to one of the big winners of Digital Britain ­ BT, and in particular its Openreach division. Ofcom is already consulting on proposals that would give Openreach control of those green cabinets you see located on most streets.

Openreach is the organisation that will be connecting up ISPs who want to roll out next-generation connectivity to your house. However, its record for doing the same for businesses in the UK leaves a lot to be desired, according to some ISPs I have talked to.

The main issue is a lack of transparency when it comes to connection charges. You can sign up to BT Wholesale for fibre connections, and then later down the line get hit by Openreach charges for connecting that fibre.

And some of these charges are no laughing matter. An ISP I spoke to recently had a nasty surprise after it checked out how much a fibre connection would cost in a large city centre. “You can use the BT Wholesale pricing tool and come back with a nice figure that looks very good, but when you order it, Openreach comes back with extremely high additional costs indicating excess construction charges,” said my source.

“Look at the charge for drilling a hole,” he added. “More than £300! What type of drills are they using ­ gold-plated ones, badged by Armani?”

You get the picture by now, but remember the government and Ofcom has conceded that BT has to make a return on its investment; the question is ­ just how much? If the Openreach charges relating to connecting up fibre for businesses are any indication, ISPs, and that includes BT Wholesale, should prepare to get stiffed big time.

So instead of dreaming about a Britain with state-of-the-art network infrastructure, I’m reminded more of the Ellen Ripley character in the Alien movies. In the last film of the series, Alien Resurrection, Ripley is once again trying to rid the universe of the bio-mechanoid killing machines. At one point she’s chatting to the obligatory android and says: “I don’t dream any more.” When asked why, she answers: “Because however bad the nightmares get, when I wake up ­ the reality is always worse.”

Ring any bells?