Download ESPON 1.2.2 Telecommunications Services and Networks

ESPON 1.2.2
Telecommunications Services
and Networks (TN&S)
Presentation to 3rd ESPON
Seminar
Matera, Italy 6-7 October 2003
Key spatial trends in Europe
• Patterns are complex, different technologies show different
patterns
• At European level: north-south and east-west divides are
apparent, but some exceptions and there is a degree of ‘catch
up’ for some technologies (notably mobile)
• Within Countries:
– Largest cities are generally more advanced than rest of country
– Urban-rural divides are evident and appear not to be declining – but
true of all countries?
• If left to market densely populated and prosperous places are
targeted first, some places perhaps not at all – pop density, gdp,
profitability
Internet users per 10,000 inhabitants
2001
Level of household access to Internet
by degree of urbanisation
Proportion of population subscribing to
broadband (DSL and Cable Modem)
in European Countries, 2002
Number of broadband subscribers
(DSL and cable modem) per 100 of
population
Broadband availability in Finland by
population density (NUTS 4)
The number of broadband technologies
available across the UK
Key policy questions
• The market clearly favours densely populated and
more prosperous regions, but is there a digital lag or
a lasting digital gap?
• What is the appropriate form of intervention
– Is infrastructure investment the answer – return to STAR
– Which technologies and which actors to support? Possibility
of creating path dependency through intervention?
– What is appropriate time span of intervention? Does a
dynamic infrastructure = perpetual intervention as peripheral
regions run to stand still?
– What is the appropriate spatial scale for intervention? May
not only be required in peripheral regions and whole of a
peripheral region may not require it
Outline of preliminary policy options
•
•
•
•
Changing competitive and regulatory environment
– Stimulating competition at the local level
– Amending USD
– Removing ‘spatial blinkers’ from regulator
Aggregation of regional telecoms procurement
– public authority demand aggregation
– private sector demand aggregation
Stimulating or building telecoms networks, e.g.,
– Direct subsidy to telco (competitive tender)
– Public-private partnership
– Public sector ‘construction’ of network
Demand stimulation, e.g.,
–
•
E-government, awareness raising, advice to SMEs, creation of relevant content etc.
Establishing greater knowledge symmetry between public and private
sectors
Challenges for next phase
• Building on our analysis to date
• Accessing data
• Further testing, confirming, nuancing our
findings
• Interegating relevant findings of other TPGs
and further interpretation of our findings in the
light of conceptual developments in ESPON
• Resource challenge
Key tasks for next phase
• Reviewing relevant concepts and typologies
Integrating new secondary data
• INRA, Eurostat Survey on Enterprise ICT
usage, Eeurope benchmarking
• Enhancing our models
• Using ‘targeted’ approach to case studies to
complement our quantitative data
• Contributing to ESPON Common Platform