Chapter 753 Broadband Promotion Plan
“With all due respect, the development of the broadband industry in the UK is slow and stagnant, like a snail! It has seriously affected the development of our Internet technology industry. If we cannot If the status quo is changed, in a few years, the Internet industry in England and even Europe will fall significantly behind the development of Asia and North America, becoming a veritable Internet desert.”
This is the new era after Cameron came to power. In a hearing held by the government on the development of the British technology industry, the head of the Digital Future Investment Company said what he said when facing a group of heads of relevant agencies.
The purpose of this meeting is to launch a plan to vigorously develop network facilities in the UK, with the aim of building an ultra-fast broadband network covering the entire UK within five years.
“Although O2 Telecom has tried its best to build broadband access services in the UK, the fact that needs to be acknowledged is that British Telecom (BT) still controls most of the basis for UK fiber optic access. Equipment, I think you should listen more to the opinions of some small and medium-sized companies. BT charges them excessive fiber access fees..."
In private, Barron once complained to the British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt:
“Of course, from a personal point of view, I am happy to see this situation, and that is why, O2 Telecom has been able to develop rapidly in its broadband business and win many customers at more suitable prices. But from the perspective of the entire country, this is because. Even O2 Telecom needs to measure the cost-effectiveness of its infrastructure investment, so it cannot take care of a wider range of markets in the short term..."
He had another meaning that he did not say directly, That is, among the funds invested by the government, British Telecom received too much share, which was not consistent with their construction and payment ratio.
It can be said that many of the data listed in this meeting illustrate that the current level of network construction in the UK has fallen far behind the current global leaders.
For example, according to data from the British telecommunications regulator Ofcom, so far, the proportion of British households with access to ultra-high-speed broadband with a speed of 30Mbps and above is less than 5%!
At present, only about 12% of Internet users in the UK have uninterrupted access to 5 megabits per second high-speed network, compared with 65% in South Korea.
A survey by Ofcom last week also showed that only 0.2% of households in the UK currently have access to optical fiber networks, while the proportion in Sweden is 12%, and Japan ranks first in the world with 34%. .
And the main fiber access method in the UK now is fiber to the road - it is to first connect the fiber to the phone booths in each area, and then connect it to each home through the existing copper wire. This is called For FTTCand mode, the fastest network speed available is only 4 megabits per second.
O2 Telecom provides optical fiber direct-to-home (FTTH) in some areas, with network speeds up to 100 megabits per second.
“Broadband network itself is not an end, but the most important thing is to use various services of broadband network, such as remote classroom and telemedicine services, to make people more closely connected, which will change people’s lifestyle, thereby accelerating the transmission of information throughout society and promoting the development of our Internet industry - although we now have some leading Internet companies in Europe and even the world, such as Woaw, such as Argos.com, such as DailyVedio, But if we do not speed up the popularization of our broadband, the development of these companies will eventually be restricted, and they will eventually lose to those companies in Silicon Valley..."
Barron told Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt that these words were not alarmist:
“In the past year, the digital industry contributed 10% of new value to the UK, equivalent to approximately 130 billion pounds, and digital The number of employees in the industry accounts for 6% of the total workforce in the UK, more than 1.7 million people. It can be clearly seen that the digital industry still shows strong growth momentum during the economic recession.”
Similarly, according to London. A survey by the School of Economics shows that laying ultra-fast broadband networks across the UK could create more than 300,000 new jobs.
And every time the government invests 100 million pounds in network-related infrastructure, it may bring about an increase of nearly 10 billion pounds in related industries! The so-called "three things to do when a new official takes office" is that Cameron himself is very concerned about the development of the London Technology City - the Mayor of Greater London was already held by Johnson of the Conservative Party two years ago, and he is also very concerned about the London Technology City. Strongly promote.
In addition, during the general election, he also promised to increase government investment and promote employment, and now he also needs to carry out some plans that can be publicized.
This is also the main reason for having this discussion not long after he took office.
As for the funds to promote this plan-Barron promised to Cameron that if the funds allocated for this plan are used more "fairly", the funds will be invested in projects that are more active in construction. company, instead of still using British Telecom as the main force, then his British Fortune Era (BFT) Fund is willing to return part of the funds invested in this fund and the corresponding interest to the government in advance.
According to this agreement, the BFT Fund will first return 25% of the funds and corresponding interest to the Bank of England, totaling more than 13.5 billion pounds. These funds will be used to invest in promoting broadband infrastructure in the UK within five years. Planned.
When Standard Chartered Bank acquired Northrock Bank, which had been injected by the government, Barron was willing to let Standard Chartered Bank return the 25 billion pounds invested by the government.
But the conditions proposed at that time were that the government needed to inject a total of 50 billion pounds into the British Fortune Era (BFT) fund, part of which was used to return the 25 billion pounds, and the BFT fund was required to invest and eventually return these funds. funds and corresponding interest.
Now through Barron's series of investments, especially the profits just after short selling in Europe, there is not much pressure to return part of the funds.
And the most important thing is that when the remaining 25 billion pounds of the BFT fund was converted into US dollars, the exchange rate of GBP/USD was at a high of 2.11...
Now, the GBP/USD exchange rate is as high as 2.11... Although the exchange rate has not reached the lowest level after ten years, it has also dropped to around 1.45.
The advantage they have gained simply because of the exchange rate is already very obvious, not to mention that the assets that the BFT fund bought during the subprime mortgage crisis have increased in value a lot now.
Now Barron's doesn't even need to sell those invested assets. He only uses part of his own funds to make profits, which is enough to pay the 25% of the funds and corresponding interest first.
And in the broadband infrastructure promotion plan carried out by the government using these funds, O2 Telecom will definitely be able to receive a considerable part of the subsidies.
(End of this chapter)