CEO’s monthly update – 2014: a busy quarter ahead

CEO’s monthly update – 2014: a busy quarter ahead

Pamela Learmonth2014 promises much for those in the broadband industry, and it’s all eyes to the policy sphere to help smooth the way for rollout and take-up of connectivity to realise the social and economic gains for the UK.

The first quarter of 2014 alone promises much in the way of further detail on the Government’s Digital Communications Infrastructure Strategy, the £250m BDUK superfast extension programme and the £10m innovation fund. From DCMS, we can also expect the publication of the Spectrum Strategy, and from the GDS team in the Cabinet Office the forthcoming Digital Inclusion Strategy can be expected to have reverberations across government. In UK Parliament, the Consumer Rights Bill has been introduced and the Intellectual Property Bill is progressing, currently at amendments stage. In Europe, all eyes to Commissioner Kroes as the Connected Continent package has a limited amount of time to pass before election season.

January also kicked off with CES 2014, where we noted a growing number of references on future bandwidth needs.

Watch this space as we will soon be launching our 2014 work programme, and February will also see the launch of a new BSG report looking at how SMEs can capitalise on connectivity.