Optical Fibres (Hansard, 22 November 1994)

§ Mr. Heseltine

In the Command Paper, "Creating the Superhighways of the Future: Developing Broadband Communications in the United Kingdom", published today, I have set out the Government's vision for creating information super-highways in the United Kingdom. We need to build on the substantial investment in telecommunications networks and infrastructure which has been made by the private sector in recent years. Greater emphasis is now required in this country on developing a wide range of applications to be used on the super-highways. The opportunities—particularly in multimedia—are vast, and they need to be better appreciated if the United Kingdom is to gain maximum advantage.

The Command Paper incorporates the Government's response to the Trade and Industry Select Committee report on optical fibre networks and copies are available in the Libraries of both Houses and on the Internet.

Thanks to privatisation and deregulation, the United Kingdom is already a world leader in these new information infrastructures, which gives us an excellent platform to build on the earlier liberalisation of the telecommunications sector. The Government want to see the development of competitive and commercially successful broadband communications networks to bring new opportunities and benefits to business, individuals, and users of public services.

Competition in telecommunications since 1991 has been the engine of rapid progress in both infrastructure and telecommunications services. Industry has responded to the challenge and has innovated to deliver new technologies and services. Customers now enjoy not only considerably more choice but significantly lower prices and better quality services.

In the future, the success of the digital super-highway will be even more customer driven. The winners will be the companies that deliver services and products that customers want, at a price they will pay.

The Government remain committed to the regulatory framework established in 1991. That framework has already provided an important foundation for substantial investment in infrastructure, leading to the creation of truly interactive broadband communications networks. As competition grows and technology advances, the broad regulatory framework is expected to evolve. The existing policy on national public telecommunications operators providing and conveying entertainment services over their national networks remains as set out in the 1991 telecommunications White Paper, and will not be reviewed prematurely.

The Government want to encourage all operators, including national PTOs like British Telecom and Mercury, to gain experience in offering a full range of new interactive services. All operators may do this by applying for new local delivery operator franchises, and the Government hope that this opportunity will be taken up. The intention is to seek to allow national PTOs who acquire such franchises to test new technologies alongside their existing services, making use of the same infrastructure where possible.

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Investment in the development of information super-highways, both in terms of infrastructure and the services and applications they will carry, will be led by the private sector. The Government are, nevertheless, committed to being more proactive and innovative in offering public services by these means. The command paper underlines the importance for education and healthcare of developing interactive broadband technologies. As an important beginning, the Command Paper published today is the first ever to be made available electronically on the Internet. In the future, the Government will make an increasingly wide rang of information available in a similar fashion.

It will be vital to match the emerging broadband technologies with the content being developed for the super-highways. My Department will be encouraging the growing convergence of telecommunications, information technology and broadcasting. Building the super-highways and exploiting the whole range of multimedia services that they can deliver is essential for both the economic and cultural development of the United Kingdom into the next century. To drive this work forward, I have asked my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Technology to take responsibility for co-ordinating the DTI's multimedia interests for the information society.