Assessing the impact of business broadband use on the Welsh economy

Telecommunications Policy

2020

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Increasing attention has been paid to the potential for demand-side policies to stimulate use of broadband networks. Such policies form part of the increasing digitalisation of the economy and wider society. This is an area where governments are also facing challenges in their efforts to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of their policies. The paper sheds light on the impact that the transition towards digital has had on demand-side policies supporting the adoption of broadband and digital technologies by SMEs, and draws out the implications for policy, using a case study of Wales in the UK over a ten-year period. It shows that digitalisation has seen policy mechanisms and messages evolving as policy makers have created a more integrated and multi-channel approach to the delivery of advisory support to SMEs, but that the emergence of multiple types of actors (large digital platform businesses) and ongoing digitalisation are adding complexity to policies and their interaction with other forms of public and private business support.

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demand-side broadband policy in the context of digital transformation: An examination of SME digital advisory policies in Wales

Telecommunications Policy

2020

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“…Addressing these challenges has long been a focus of urban and regional policy initiatives going back to the 1930s (Morgan, 2017 (SQW, 2016). Operating between 2012 and 2017 Superfast Cymru was delivered through a contract with BT/Openreach with a focus on connecting premises in areas that did not have access to superfast broadband at the time of its launch (Henderson, 2017).…”

Section: The Research Case and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These reflect the complex governance arrangements that have emerged following devolution in Wales in 1999 (Rees and Morgan, 2001). While Wales has been able to incrementally add to its devolved powers, the UK Government has retained direct responsibility for broadband telecommunications policy 6 , reflecting the importance of national harmonisation with EU and international bodies (Ofcom, 2017 The deployment of broadband has been the focus of policy makers seeking to ensure that both households and businesses are able to engage in the modern economy (Henderson, 2017 The case of Wales was selected to reflect complex multi-level and multi-dimensional policy dynamics described above. Wales has also been able to develop responses to specific challenges faced by mobile broadband deployment, through both its own activities, and those of other multi-level actors.…”

Section: The Research Case and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional funding was provided by the UK Government’s Broadband Deployment UK programme (SQW, 2016). Operating between 2012 and 2017 Superfast Cymru was delivered through a contract with BT/Openreach with a focus on connecting premises in areas that did not have access to superfast broadband at the time of its launch (Henderson, 2017). This reflected the recognition that private sector deployment of infrastructure in largely urban areas had come to an end, leaving a number of ‘not-spots’ (National Assembly for Wales, 2013).…”

Section: The Research Case and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The deployment of broadband has been the focus of policy makers seeking to ensure that both households and businesses are able to engage in the modern economy (Henderson, 2017). Policy makers have expressed this in stated objectives to ensure the availability of basic and ‘next generation’ broadband for all households and businesses, improving mobile broadband coverage (Welsh Government, 2010), and ensuring fixed access for 95% of households at speeds in excess of 30 megabits per second (Mbps) by the end of 2017 (Welsh Government, 2017c).…”

Section: The Research Case and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Examining the policy mix for broadband deployment in Wales: The role of informal coordination in the last mile

Roche

2019

Local Economy

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This paper examines the challenges of deploying broadband policies at the local level. It is a topic that has received significant attention in urban and rural areas, with uneven access to broadband identified as an important issue by policy makers and researchers alike. While the broadband and regional development literature has highlighted the complexity of regional deployment, with reference to geographical metaphors such as the last mile, it has tended to downplay the underlying policy processes as actors seek to manage the deployment process over time and space. Drawing on the concept of the policy mix, the paper examines how actors seek to manage complexity between policy objectives. It does so by drawing on an in-depth case-study of broadband policy in Wales – 2012 to 2017, and shows deployment to be a contested process in the last mile, characterised by interaction between policy objectives in a range of policy areas including planning and highways. It is argued that coordination of these tensions represents a complex socio-spatial process in which local actors (government, households, businesses and broadband providers) engage in a negotiated process to find place-based, bespoke solutions to deployment problems.

Broadband and uneven spatial development: The case of Cardiff City-Region

Jones

2019

Local Economy

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The internet and e-connectivity more generally are increasingly held to be an important element of business success. Evidence however suggests that the productive impacts of such technologies are contingent on factors that include firm size and sector, and human capital. It follows that if companies with these characteristics are unevenly distributed across space, the increasing importance of broadband in economic activity might impact unevenly on economic outcomes across space. We examine the Cardiff City-Region in South Wales, where the distribution of businesses and skills suggests that without policy intervention the roll out of broadband might further increase economic disparities between the relatively prosperous coastal belt and the poorer post-industrial hinterland.