Full Fibre infrastructure is the catalyst for Britain’s post-Brexit success
On the 31st December, Britain put up its ‘open for business’ sign to the rest of the world. As we now take our first steps outside the EU, we must ensure that Global Britain is equipped for success in a digital age.
We are a service-based economy blessed with exciting media industries, leading financial institutions, and a growing number of green technology innovators that draw envious eyes from around the globe.
Yet to supercharge businesses like these, we need world class digital infrastructure.
It is only when underpinned by the fastest, most reliable Full Fibre networks – which bring enormous improvements in speed and reliability from the copper-based networks of the past – that the UK will truly cement itself as a leading digital economy, enabling it to collaborate and compete with countries and companies across the world.
By levelling the digital playing field, full fibre can help level up the entire country.
Imagine a Britain where every home, business, hospital and school has access to the world’s best digital infrastructure.
Providing access for all to gigabit-speed, reliable broadband, no matter which part of the country you are in, is a long-term investment in our future – one that can, and should, be a key pillar of the levelling up agenda.
In communities that may feel left behind as the economy has changed around them, world-class connectivity has the potential to create not only new jobs but even new industries, supporting livelihoods and unleashing innovations in health and social care.
By levelling the digital playing field, full fibre can help level up the entire country.
To understand its true importance, we need only look at our total dependence on digital infrastructure over the past year.
As the physical has been replaced with the virtual, we have all become acutely aware of just how critical reliable digital connections really are.
Full Fibre is that platform for our generation, one on which the unforeseeable will become reality, for the good of us all.
Unreliable digital infrastructure is not just an inconvenience, it can severely impact our ability to work, to learn, to communicate and to use vital services.
This is about so much more than better broadband. Full Fibre infrastructure is the modern-day equivalent of the railway.
While society functioned perfectly well before it, the railway made the impossible, possible. It was a platform for growth in ways that were at the time unknowable.
Full Fibre is that platform for our generation, one on which the unforeseeable will become reality, for the good of us all.
For most of the last decade, Britain had struggled to grasp the true importance of world class digital infrastructure.
Our European neighbours had surged ahead with their own Full Fibre rollouts and we remained stuck in the digital doldrums.
The good news is that now that over the last few years, we have recognised the imperative of action and progress is now accelerating at an unparalleled speed.
Britain is now rolling out Full Fibre at a faster rate than almost any other country, underpinned by a growing tide of private investment which recognises both the challenge and the opportunity.
We are playing our part, investing £4bn to bring Full Fibre to up to 8 million UK premises by 2025.
Long fought-for infrastructure competition is at the heart of this turnaround.
Ofcom and Government have set a course for a competitive market that will deliver the outcome wanted by all – a Full Fibre future for Britain.
Wherever there’s competitive spirit, our industry drives harder to succeed, and it is homes and business across the country who benefit.
The years ahead will be challenging but as we push on, further and faster, we and other network builders will leave the UK a legacy of world-class digital infrastructure fit for an exciting future.
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