Industry news

High bandwidth infrastructure 'will wait for applications'

Application providers will not create software for next-generation networks until a high bandwidth infrastructure is in place, a speaker at a Westminster eForum seminar asserts.

Nick Palmer, a member of the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, says this presents an issue, as the firms which would establish the networks are reluctant to begin until there is demand for it.

Questioning which side of the divide should "make the leap", he suggests this is a situation in which government intervention could have a strongly positive effect.

"If you're starting a road network or a rail network it's intuitively clear … that it makes sense for a government to build a motorway or a rail track," he states.

Emphasising the importance of community consultation, Mr Palmer suggests it is vital to make next-generation, networks with high bandwidths an essential part of people's work.

He says it is at this point employees will begin demanding the infrastructure to support this.

According to Ofcom's Executive Summary of the next-generation network consultation, the cabling and connectivity will include fibre, cable and possibly ethernet technologies.