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Connecting Scotland our broadband future: Making it Happen
THE FUTURE - making it sustainable
Broadband matters
In 2001, the Scottish Executive published its statement of ambitions for Scotland's future economic growth and development, A Smart, Successful Scotland. This emphasised the importance of global connections to the realisation of a high-earning, fast-learning nation and a vibrant economy.
Growing businesses are businesses with a competitive edge - running faster and more efficiently. Broadband is not the only factor to e-business success, but it is a key element to more Scottish businesses gaining the competitive edge that Internet technologies can offer. While businesses can enjoy significant advantages from simply being 'on-line' via dial up modem, broadband's speed, 'always on' capability and capacity for data transfer make it a far greater enabler of the benefits of e-business.
This year in the market, we shall see the potential of ADSL demand pre-registration tested and we will make a significant market intervention to accelerate and extend ADSL's reach in Scotland. Behind the scenes, Scotland will be involved in trials to test the commercial case for mini-enabling of exchanges, using new technology, and the Highlands and Islands will develop wireless community network models. The success of the satellite trials will also need to be evaluated. In the meantime, the broadband strategy projects and related activities will mature and start to yield benefits.
Our vision in Connecting Scotland: our broadband future was to make broadband connections more affordable and pervasive. As this paper has shown, public sector activities have since sought to promote this goal, not only through our power as purchasers of telecoms services (Pathfinders), but through the economic development remit of the enterprise agencies (ATLAS, HIPP, Broadband Fund Programme).
In the short term
We will make a major intervention into the Scottish broadband market to make the technology available to more areas of Scotland where market forces will take too long to deliver, if at all. Furthermore, we aim to raise awareness and stimulate demand for broadband through:
- demonstrator centres;
- seminars and roadshows;
- information material; and
- a website.
In the medium term
We aim to encourage wider supply through:
- piloted aggregated procurement by the public sector (Pathfinders);
- innovative intervention in the market to increase competition (ATLAS);
- trials of alternative delivery mechanisms in rural areas; and
- providing a focus to encourage content and applications development.
In the longer term
We aim to steer strategic development of broadband initiatives in Scotland through:
- commissioning a 'forward look' to predict the impact of current and planned activities;
- taking a joined-up overview of all related activities and ensuring complementarity; and
- looking at opportunities to address disparities in current remoter trunk network (HIPP).
Finally, we are working with the private sector to develop a marketing campaign linking available supply with demand in order to increase uptake and improve the commercial case for further roll-out of services.
Five thousand companies in the last year received advice via E-business Workshops on what the Internet can do for business. The message is obviously getting through as the latest Scottish E-business survey shows that the percentage of businesses on-line in Scotland has grown to 67%. Yet the same survey reveals that 53% of businesses in Scotland don't know what speed of connection they have. There is obviously still work to be done to educate businesses on the value of higher-speed connections. As the exciting possibilities offered by higher speed connections become increasingly evident to Scottish businesses, speed will matter. Simply being on-line will not be enough in itself.
Broadband will become the standard by which other methods of connection are judged and the means by which many businesses gain their competitive edge.
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