Swedish lesson in connectivity

Lars Hedberg

There are more than a few subjects in which New Zealand can take lessons from Sweden. Besides luxury car design and winter sports the Scandinavian nation can teach us a thing or two about broadband internet connectivity.

While New Zealand still struggles to take advantage of the broadband boom, Sweden has become one of the best connected countries in the world, falling just short of the OECD's top 10 in uptake rankings at 11th. (New Zealand wallows at 22nd out of 30.)

It's perhaps this success that prompted organisers of the inaugural Digital Cities and Regional Networks conference, beginning in Wellington tomorrow, to invite one of the key figures in driving broadband uptake to share his experiences.

Lars Hedberg is secretary-general, founder, and former chairman of the Swedish Urban Network Association - a non-profit organisation working to create an open-access broadband network.

One of its aims is to work towards an independent infrastructure for the telecommunications and data communications markets, thus stimulating competition between service providers.

Hedberg says: "What we mean by open network is that the network owner doesn't compete with the service provider."

In Sweden, more than 400 different service providers - from television companies to ISPs - have opted to share open networks rather than build expensive private networks, he says.

Hedberg will be the keynote speaker at the Digital Cities conference, but because of his tight schedule - and perhaps to illustrate a point - his speech will be made via broadband video link. His appearance is part of a drive to raise awareness about opening up "the last mile" and encouraging cities and regions to create their own high-speed open-access broadband networks, allowing business-to-business or institution-to-institution links.

A former telecoms engineer with the Swedish Royal Air Force and senior consultant for the Air Force telecommunications system, Hedberg is now a member of the Ministry of Swedish Communications infrastructure advisory board and a board member of the Institute of Information and Technology.

He also worked for seven years in sales in marketing and was a member of the board at Stokab, Stockholm's leading city-owned dark fibre provider.

Dark fibre is optic cable that has been laid by a company for future use - as opposed to "lit" cable, which is in use as soon as it is installed.

In some countries the price on dark fibre has dropped significantly - especially in the US where it was over-supplied in the 1990s in anticipation of a dot-com boom.

The price is now low enough to make it viable for companies and institutions to buy cable instead of renting it. Stockholm has one of the largest dark fibre networks in the world.

There are 290 communities in Sweden and about 200 of them have an open-access network, where anyone can lease dark fibre on equal terms. These networks serve schools, health care centres, and local councils.

"When the European Union allowed competition, suddenly the municipalities started looking into costs and found out they could save a lot of money by laying their own cables," Hedberg says.

"Many municipalities also own their local power company. They are digging up streets and laying electrical cables. So at the same time, they lay a fibre network. That's how it started. Local businesses started asking if they could use the existing networks to connect their office to a storehouse."

The Swedish Urban Network Association has more than 300 members including private companies, universities, infrastructure providers such as Ericsson and Alcatel, and more than 150 metropolitan networks.

Hedberg also says there are other economic benefits to sharing.

"If you have a private company with shareholders, they need to see money back quite fast. But if you have an organisation who owns a public network, you can have a payback time of 20 years or more," he says.

"You also create a new company to look after it, which has employees who are working and paying tax. That's the whole idea."

Lars Hedberg

* Favourite gadget: Laptop, complete with webcam and GPS card.

* Next big trend in technology: Using computer-based P2P telephony such as Skype for international calls. Uses include keeping an eye on his grandchildren, who live in the United States, via a broadband video connection.

* Alternative career: Mariner.

* Spare time: Sailing.

* Favourite science-fiction film: Armageddon.