HS2 v broadband
Sir: Rory Sutherland (The Wiki Man, 25 May) is rightly sceptical of HS2, but in limiting his remarks only to the transport of people, he is still too kind. Why spend 20 years building Victorian technology when the infrastructure of the future will be a broadband network of far greater capacity than exists now? The internet has revolutionised the distribution of most services and the production of some products. New technologies like 3D printing are on the cusp of transforming the location of industry and the distribution of manufactures, which could benefit depressed areas far more than HS2. These technologies require the downloading of vast amounts of data at speeds with which the existing UK broadband capacity cannot yet cope. Those who campaign to stop HS2 would have a far better case if they argued the money be spent on building a high-capacity infrastructure that will connect every citizen to millions of points for millions of purposes in virtual zero time.
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