Enhancing Access To, and use and Quality of, Information

and Communication Technologies

Discussion points will be:

•What is missing?

•What is identified that should have a lower priority?

Rationale

• Link between the availability and adoption of ICT and broadband and economic recovery and growth• Increasing importance of the knowledge economy for future growth • Coventry and Warwickshire’s manufacturing sector is dominated by

high tech, high value manufacturing • Sector is increasingly reliant upon high performance connectivity, for

example, to support collaboration and data exchange with national and international partners and suppliers

What is happening now?

• BT commercial rollout will complete spring 2014• Over 67,000 properties (Warwickshire and Solihull) will not have

superfast broadband at the end of the commercial programme• CSW Broadband is a partnership of 8 local authorities (Coventry,

Solihull, Warwickshire and 8 districts), led by Warwickshire County Council• £15.47m project to bring superfast broadband to approved “white”

areas• Will achieve 93% fibre and 92% superfast broadband

Targets

• UK 2018 targets:• 95% Superfast (24Mbps or more)• 100% Universal Service Commitment (min 2Mbps) – this should be achieved by 2016

• EU 2020 targets:• 100% at a minimum of 30Mbps• 50% connected to and using 100Mbps

• That is why we are trying to maximise the fibre coverage through the current project• £250m additional Government funding announced to reach 95% superfast by

2018 (no more details as yet)• Will require match funding

Investment Priorities:

• An effective and timely intervention to improve the quality, availability and adoption of ICT and broadband could create a step-change in economic growth in the area• Enhancement of the successful demand stimulation and user

education activity• Potential for knowledge exchange and collaboration between

research centres and businesses

Roll out of High Speed Digital Networks to Address Market Failure• In this context it is vital to;

• undertake key analysis of the final deployment areas; promote active engagement with local communities and businesses to identify levels of demand and “hot spots”

• create a data bank to present to the market to encourage investment in expansion of the planned network

• develop a portfolio of investment opportunities to address barriers to commercial provision in the market

• identify public and private assets that could be utilised to assist with the provision of superfast broadband to the “white” areas

• enable communities and business clusters to investigate self-build and other self-fund initiatives and introduce a voucher scheme across the whole of Coventry and Warwickshire to enable businesses to take up fibre to the premise technology where it is available

Ensure that new commercial developments have access to high quality open-access broadband infrastructure

• In this context it is appropriate to; • understand the forward-planning policies of each Local Authority

• engage in the development of Local Plan documents to encourage the inclusion of fibre infrastructure on new developments

• identify developments that already have outline or full planning permission and engage with the developers to ensure that they recognise the benefit of providing good broadband and the importance of making sure that the infrastructure is open-access to drive down cost and increase competition among internet service providers, and

• Where appropriate to work with developers to ensure that fibre broadband infrastructure is installed from the outset on all new developments.

Take-Up and Exploitation of Emerging Technologies• Linked to the themes for Innovation and SME support• To encourage take up and exploitation it is vital that; • the awareness of the benefits of broadband-enabled technologies is

embedded within business support provision,

• that a range of business-support options that encourage SMEs to move up the e-adoption ladder are available

• further networking and best practice sharing between ICT companies is developed, and

• that collaborative working is encouraged between businesses and with HE, FE and between larger companies and SMEs to cascade knowledge and good practice in the use of ICT.

Higher level workforce skills

• This strategic priority will be addressed through linkage to the Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning theme• To support the further growth of ICT in Coventry and Warwickshire it is

vital to; • encourage greater collaboration between the higher and further education

sectors and businesses in Coventry and Warwickshire, particularly with SMEs and micro businesses;

• offer specific training aimed at the decision-makers within businesses to increased their understanding of the benefits of using digital technologies and encouraging them to make investment in these areas; and

• enable greater participation and uptake of further and higher education opportunities in Coventry and Warwickshire

Discussion

•What is missing?•What is identified that should have a lower priority?