UK warned: Broadband speeds will dive without fibre

The UK needs to get its act together over next-generation broadband networks or risk a future of declining broadband speeds, an analyst has warned.

Discussing the business case for deploying fibre at a Westminster eForum keynote seminar on next-gen broadband, Ian Fogg, research director at analyst house Forrester Research, warned: "If we get this wrong — which we might do — or if we're slow to do it, tomorrow's broadband speeds may be the same as today's broadband speeds. They may be worse without that investment.

"People use iPlayer, they use World of Warcraft, they use these things more and more and if there isn't the network investment going in, the actual speeds that we enjoy will actually reduce over the next few years. We need to get this right and we need to get this right today."

Fogg said only fibre can deliver a "step change" in speeds for home broadband users.

However, he warned the trend for declining broadband prices in the UK could scupper a fibre future as consumers are becoming accustomed to paying less — not more — for their fat pipes.

The analyst said the problem is not necessarily that people will not pay for faster speeds, but rather a lack of clarity by ISPs in marketing them has made it difficult for consumers to compare rival offerings, and has therefore pushed them to shop by service price instead.

"We need to fix this because if consumers don't pay more for broadband, or if they pay increasingly less, the business case for fibre and for investment worsens over time," Fogg added.

While fibre will play a role in the future of Britain's broadband — telco BT recently announced a £1.5bn investment to give 10 million UK homes fibre access by 2012 — a consensus is emerging the UK will end up with a 'patchwork quilt' of technologies to deliver super high-speed broadband services, rather than one ubiquitous offering.

Anthony Walker, chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, told delegates at the eForum: "We're not going to get one single monolithic NGA [next-generation access]. In the UK we're going to see a number of different networks deployed that will work alongside each other."

Ensuring interoperability by establishing a single standard all technologies adhere to is therefore going to be critical, added Clive Carter, principal, strategy and market developments at Ofcom. "The availability of common standards is going to be fundamental to the delivery of the patchwork-quilt model," he said.

Malcolm Corbett, chief executive of the Community Broadband Network, said local next-gen initiatives which have gained strong community backing can be cost-effective ways to bring fibre to regions that might otherwise be overlooked. He cited the community-owned Ons Net fibre to the home project in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, where residents of the town signed contracts to take the service prior to it being built, guaranteeing return on investment for telcos.

Corbett claimed there are at least 15 UK local initiatives to bring next-generation broadband to specific regions - such as the H20 Networks's sewer fibre deployment in Bournemouth and the North Yorkshire Network.

With the right level of community buy-in from the get-go, Corbett said there should be "no need for a price premium" for deploying fibre.