Why haven't we built a Next Generation Broadband network in the UK yet? It's the perennial debate in the telecomms and communications industries, and is beginning to climb the list of priorities for both those in the media and the policy wonks down in Whitehall. Before we have a crack at the question let's take a quick look at the numbers that dominate it and remain the biggest barriers to its quick delivery. To roll it out to about 80% of the country should cost around £16bn give or take loose change, and depending on the solution deployed  - be it fibre to the home or fibre to the cabinet - will take between 5 and 10 years. The majority of this expenditure and time will be spent doing the civil engineering that is needed to dig up the highways and byways of the UK to lay the pipe.

The debate is moving quite quickly now, driven by a raft of new bandwidth intensive services that have brought us to a pressure point neatly displayed this week by BBC's Broadband Britain study which looked at different speeds across the country and received unprecedented viewer feedback - around 60,000 responses to bbc.co.uk apparently  - as people complained about headline speeds far below those they were promised. There are a number of dissatisfied and frustrated consumers out there. Hence the media’s interest in what is already a fundamental part of the mixed economy of broadcast platfroms that the PSB’s are now using (iplayer, digital radio and some simulcast stations are all available online) and the government’s involvement in what it claims it recognises as the crucial enabling infrastructure of the 21st century. Enabling here is meant in the very broadest sense, both socially and economically.

So what to do? The Broadband Stakeholder Group - the industry government forum that looks at these issues published a report this week on 'A framework for Evaluating the Value of Next Generation Broadband' that tries to quantify the economic and social benefit that Next Generation Broadband could deliver to the UK. Sadly no headline grabbing number here to make the case, just carefully couched analysis that sees returns to the economy being at least commensurate with any investment made.

There is real consensus that this enabling infrastructure will be rolled out soon, as business models evolve and ISPs begin to differentiate themselves in the market around quality and speed of service provision rather than just on cost. However Antony Walker CEO of the BSG framed the debate in terms of what economists call an 'option value' -  in simple terms the value in a policy of wait and see where you can learn from the other choices and deployments that are made elsewhere. This value does diminish over time but as Walker summarised, the point he believes we have reached in the UK is that we must 'Do it right, but not right now'.

By Sam Ingleby, Programme Manager