'Digital Britain may be run from abroad'

The infrastructure needed to run Digital Britain may end up being built, installed and operated abroad because the country's data and processing facilities are inadequate.



Although engine rooms capable of providing the 2Mbps 'broadband for all' service are emerging, they are being developed outside the UK, which has the third highest electricity prices in Europe.



Issuing the alert, McBains Cooper, a building consultancy, said the price of British electricity was forcing infrastructure developers to set-up abroad, such as in France.



The cost issue facing data centre owners was recently signalled by search pioneer Yahoo, when it decided to move its Europe headquarters from London to the continent.



Similarly, Santander, the Spanish banking group, abandoned plans to build a big data centre for its European division in London having found a cheaper site in Madrid.



However, the "main issue is power, power and more power," Derek Webster, an associate director of McBains Cooper told the Times.



He added: "Digital Britain will need massive data-centre capacity to accommodate what the government is planning, but the average data centre uses as much power…as a city the size of Leicester."



Also, the challenge of securing long-term power contracts, arising from constraints on the electricity network, most notably in the South will reportedly force a Greater London Authority meeting this week.



"Ironically, Digital Britain may end up with its major organs being based in France, Germany Sweden or Switzerland, because of power, costs and availability," Mr Webster said.



If the data and processing needs of Digital Britain are outsourced, he fears UK companies may miss lucrative opportunities to develop, supply, service and maintain such facilities.



There are fears that the UK's competitiveness could be undermined further, as British companies, hungry for faster services, would be alerted to the UK's shortage of high-capacity fibre-optic cable and turn elsewhere.