"We won't give network providers money -- instead, we want to let the market make the decision... It has to be be funded by consumers. I see no case for funding broadband by the government. A national response of government funding would likely waste taxpayers money, preempt the market, and re-create a state monopoly..."
Much as I admire Ed Richards, that paraphrase attributed to him is utter bull - even though the final sentence quoted above is spot on.
Since 2001 the UK Government has provided one billion pounds of "incentive" through state aid (channeled through the Regional Development Authorities), public-private partnerships and induced/aggregated demand from public services (egovernment projects, schools- and hospitals-online) to get BT to install DSL equipment in areas where the company said it was not "economically viable." For documentation see "Broadband Procurement To Improve Efficiency and Effectiveness of Public Service Delivery" by Mike Gunston, UK Office of Government Commerce, presented at an OECD Broadband Workshop, Paris, France (2-4 December 2002).
This huge subsidybribe sum was supposed to achieve the Government's goal of making the UK "the most extensive and competitive broadband market in the G7 by 2005" (UK online: the broadband future - An action plan to facilitate roll-out of higher bandwidth and broadband services, Office of the e-Envoy, 13 February 2001).
A worthy goal, no doubt, but the result was undermining competition to BT at a time when competition was supposed to be encouraged. OECD experts had marvelled, in a 2004 report, at the large number of small, new, innovative WISPs and community networks targetting sparsely settled areas in the UK with low-cost, high-speed wireless services. Nearly all of these have been marginalised, destroyed or pushed to the brink of bankrupcy in the last few years by the promotion of DSL.
This "industrial policy" was put in place before Ed Richards' appointment so one shouldn't blame him for it. But one also shouldn't accept his personal policy preferences as accurately reflecting recent government actions in the UK.
BTW since you're interested in spectrum politics and particularly license-free broadband, these issues are explored in the comments I wrote for Open Spectrum UK to submit during Ofcom's consultation on what to do with the Digital Dividend. We argued for at least 24MHz to be reserved for license exempt broadband but that looks unlikely to be Ofcom's path. See http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/ddr/responses/nr/OpenSpectrumUK.pdf.
subsidybribesum was supposed to achieve the Government's goal of making the UK "the most extensive and competitive broadband market in the G7 by 2005" (UK online: the broadband future - An action plan to facilitate roll-out of higher bandwidth and broadband services, Office of the e-Envoy, 13 February 2001). A worthy goal, no doubt, but the result was undermining competition to BT at a time when competition was supposed to be encouraged. OECD experts had marvelled, in a 2004 report, at the large number of small, new, innovative WISPs and community networks targetting sparsely settled areas in the UK with low-cost, high-speed wireless services. Nearly all of these have been marginalised, destroyed or pushed to the brink of bankrupcy in the last few years by the promotion of DSL. This "industrial policy" was put in place before Ed Richards' appointment so one shouldn't blame him for it. But one also shouldn't accept his personal policy preferences as accurately reflecting recent government actions in the UK. BTW since you're interested in spectrum politics and particularly license-free broadband, these issues are explored in the comments I wrote for Open Spectrum UK to submit during Ofcom's consultation on what to do with the Digital Dividend. We argued for at least 24MHz to be reserved for license exempt broadband but that looks unlikely to be Ofcom's path. See http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/ddr/responses/nr/OpenSpectrumUK.pdf.