Broadband infrastructure acts as innovation engine

Thorben Rune missed his plane. He was one of the keynote speakers of the Policy Forum. Helped by a Skype connection he showed his face to the delegates.
He missed the plane deliberately, stated Marcel Bullinga, day chairman, to show what was possible with broadband. Although the internet connection of the hotel was atrocious, it worked quite well this time. It was remarkable that a posh place like this hotel could not provide better internet connections! Some rural backwardness, I guess. Some others, who were critical of several other characteristics of the hotel, said: "Slow tourism, slow service, slow internet!"

Rune on Skype

After polite preliminaries the connection was reduced to just a voice transfer, so mr Rune could add comments to the presentation slides which were displayed before the audience. He showed some broadband based innovations, which were enabled by the regional glass fibre networks in Denmark, such as data multi screen medical exchanges and translation services.

The 'Filly Salmons five step guide to long distance learning' interested me. Also, the questions he asked of the government in Denmark:
"Why do governments hesitate to invest in digital infrastructure? Is it too complicated, too technical? Is it the EU, which demands a free market? Is it too much like a traditional TV-network? Is a digital infrastructure not really essential?"

Of course he had arguments to waylay these statements. I'll not go into that now, but I do mention his concluding argument, that netwerk neutrality was important! I could agree on that.

"One more minute left!" Bullinga warned halfway the presentation. A pity he was such as strict chairman. For me as representative of a digital infrastructure operator this discussion was very interesting!


Bullinga interviewing Marga Waanders

In a discussion afterwards, Marga Waanders, the mayor of Dongeradeel showed to be proud of the local municipality owned broadband network Kabel Noord. But, the regional networks have not yet reached the real possible bandwidth that is necessary.
"The need for co-investments from local and regional governments is obvious and will become more so in the near future!" she concluded.

My table companion from the province of Friesland was nodding, he too had noticed that even on a national level the Ministry of Economic Affairs had started to encourage active involvement of local government in broadband development.