This week, government minister Stephen Timms gathered Ofcom, the Broadband Stakeholder Group, BT, Carphone Warehouse, Sky and Virgin Media around him to discuss what the UK should do about future high- speed broadband access. Unfortunately, the meeting did not come to any useful conclusions.

Timms has to decide whether the UK should leave investment in high-speed broadband to the vagaries of the private sector, or get the taxpayer to stump up the cash. The former option may be politically more attractive in the short term, but it risks the UK’s digital economy falling behind that of other countries in the future.

This is a problem the UK has faced before. France has had a publicly-funded high-speed rail link to the Channel for decades, whereas the UK’s link has only just now opened for business. Few would doubt that low investment in the UK’s rail network has made it harder for our businesses to compete with counterparts across the Channel. Are we about to make the same mistake with high-speed broadband?