Read more.UK Broadband Impact Study, published today, reveals speedy internet benefits.
Read more.UK Broadband Impact Study, published today, reveals speedy internet benefits.
and £15 of that then goes back to mp`s expenses.....
CAT-THE-FIFTH (14-11-2013)
so instead of ploughing 54 billion into HS2 which is estimated will return £2 for every £1 spent, they should divert that money to broadband instead.
I admit I haven't read the paper in full yet, but I've had a good skim of it and they're basically making a ten year modelled forecast based on five years of input data. So the whole thing probably needs taking with a pinch of salt.
So let's be clear. This doesn't say that "for every £1 the Government invests in broadband, the UK economy benefits by £20". It says that in 2024, they estimate the total benefit to the UK economy will have accumulated to £20 for every £1 spent. It's still a good return, but it relies on a lot of assumptions and a very limited pool of source data. Also, whle it sounds very impressive, the figures are minimal in comparison to the total economy - 0.03 percentage points of the total increase up to 2024. Assuming a low economic growth of 2% per year for the next ten years, the actual contribution to growth will be around 0.15%
Also, it relies on increased teleworking and reduced business travel as a major driver for those improvements. That's going to require more than just faster broadband - it's going to require a major culture change. Employers are still suspicious of teleworking, and their employees having fast broadband at home isn't going to change that.
Did I say pinch of salt? I'll take a whole box, please...
A lot of 'could's. As Yahoo's new boss recently decided, a lot of people working from home are actually doing the square root of Sweet FA. Pretty much matches my analysys of -most- work from home VPN usage at places I've worked.
Last edited by wasabi; 14-11-2013 at 06:37 PM. Reason: root not foot
aidanjt (14-11-2013)
And that differs from normal government statistics policy how exactly?
Hmm, Meyer's statement says a lot more about her confidence in her subordinates than in the workforce. Every occurence of home working that I've seen has really depended on having switched-on managers. On the other hand if you get some bozo who's attitude is "out of sight, out of mind" to their home workers, then that's almost guaranteed to fail. No different to the normal cubicle-based life - if your boss keeps tabs on you then it's a lot harder to skive.
When it's done well though, it can work fine. At the moment I'm in a team with folks spread across three locations in the UK, various places in Eastern Europe and a slew of people in India. Only downside of being that separated (rather than in an office together) is that you miss out on those "watercooler moments", whether it be discussing work or the football/rugby/cricket.
Couldn't agree more - despite the latest "report" from the government, HS2 will do exactly nowt for me/my-area. On the other hand I can think of at least a half-dozen folks locally who'd benefit from 100Mb/s broadband. And that 2:1 return/investment was from the latest report, I'm sure I remember earlier reports saying it was at best revenue neutral.
EDIT: A cynic of my acquaintance just wondered out loud whether that £20 assumes Google/Amazon/et al paid tax or not?
These figures look a lot like back-of-fag-packet calculations to me.
Scrap HS2 and bring on broadband investment. HS2 is just a vanity project with questionable economic benefits.
HS2 is a great idea. Can't wait till the 1990's start either
Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!
Oh dear. I would wonder if it was just me being cynical, but from the above comments, it's clear it's not.
My first observation is that these "benefits" are "projected", and "estimates", based on the "model" they developed.
Second, they stress that they nake no assessment of any further impact of BB investment, such as the 2013 'superfast' () project.
So, what this "report" really amounts to is their best guess of what the impact of what's already been invested might be, if their assumptions are right and their model is good, and that it says nothing about any projected benefits of further investment.
In other words, it's a good way to waste taxpayer money producing pretty reports, with some "expert's" best guess. Or to put it another way, spin. Or to put it yet another way, cobblers.
Give me 20 minutes and I'll produce a report that shows 50p payback per £1 invested, or £30 payback, if you wish. Give me a couple of million quid of taxpayers money and it'll be 100 pages long with loads of pretty graphs and a neat bibliography. And it'll say whatever the person signing my paycheck wants it to say.
Did anyone else read the assumptions for the economic impact assessment of HS2? If so, like me, you couldn't possibly treat this report as anything more than a good laugh for economists. I mean, a few months ago, the entire Bank of England was making predictions for unemployment that now, 3 or 4 months later, are already demonstrably wrong, though it has to be said that at least the BofE are consistent .... consistently wrong. And this purports to be predicting economic impact of broadband a decade or more into the future? Oh please, stop it, I can't stand it, my sides hurt from laughing.
This is what the term ROFLMAO was invented for.
Pleiades (15-11-2013)
Problem is that investment in broadband is skewed towards headline speed rather than a consistant median speed for everyone or nationwide coverage.
Actually, I think HS2 could be a great idea, IF it's accompanied by a concerted effort to move national institutions and investment away from the southeast/London and into the regions. Problem with *just* creating a high speed link between the Midlands and London (and yes, I'm including the links to Manchester and Leeds as the Midlands ) is that it's more likely to drive investment into London by expanding the London commuter belt, than drive investment to the regions. OTOH, give people in central offices in London and easier way to get to meetins in regional centres, and you get a much better argument for moving national bodies out of the capital, which in turn will drive investment to the regions.
EDIT: sorry, slightly off-topic I know, but it's the same issue with claiming high speed broadband will increase the economy by letting people work from home. High speed broadband won't get people working from home: letting people work from home will! Similarly, high speed train links won't create investment in the regions: investing in the regions will!
do people still use cross country trains anymore? other than MP`s ofc.... its cheaper to FLY than get a train nowadays
scrap HS2 and build the severn barrage IMO
I get the train everywhere. Buy in advance and it's still very cheap. It's only the anytime/on-the-day fares that are high, and they're generally only paid by people who can charge it to their business and get tax breaks.
Plus not everyone has the option of flying, and once you factor in the additional messing around getting to the airport, checking in, checking out, getting from the airport to wherever you're actually going, it's rarely that much quicker than the train, and often quite a bit slower. I suspect if you worked out what time I'd have to leave home for an 11am meeting in London, I'd have to get out of bed *much* earlier to fly than get the train.
Or, more likely, for every £1 invested, £20 is scammed from the newly connected naive users by cunning UK based scam artists.
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